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THE LONG ARM 
OF FANTOMAS 








A NEW FANTOMAS DETECTIVE NOVEL 

tHE LONG ARM 
OF FANTOMAS 


PIERRE SOUVESTRE 

AND 

MARCEL ALLAIN ^ 

CREATORS OF “FANTOMAS” 


NEW YORK 

THE MACAULAY COMPANY 








i 


'ranslated into English 


A. R. ALLIN SON 


by 

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P 



Copyright, 1924, 

By THE MACAULAY COMPANY 


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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 

m -7 'im 

©C1A7784U 


, c- 

Op AMERICA 




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CONTENTS 


chapter 

I. A Promising Job . 




PAGE 

7 

II. 

A Night Affray 




23 

III. 

Shady Schemes 




32 

IV. 

An Epileptic Seizure . 




37 

V. 

Disappointed Hopes . 




46 

VI. 

Prisoner of the Lantern 




57 

VII. 

Fantomas’ Ultimatum 




66 

VIII. 

A Wireless from Mid-Atlantic . 



72 

IX. 

The “Blue Chestnut” . 




77 

X. 

Tom Bob on the Spot . 




88 

XI. 

Mad as a Hatter . . . 




102 

XII. 

A Stroke of Genius . 




ii 5 

XIII. 

The Wall that Bled . 




129 

XIV. 

In the Bois de Boulogne . 




141 

XV. 

In a Private Room . . 




157 

XVI. 

Next Morning! 




168 

XVII. 

Fantomas Meets Fantomas 




182 

XVIII. 

“Fantomas Speaking!” . 




196 

XIX. 

The Prisoner of the Sante 


• A 


210 

XX. 

A Woman’s Self-Sacrifice 




220 

XXI. 

Joy Can Kill .... 




230 


v 









VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXII. A Volunteer Waiter. 239 

XXIII. The Wedding Breakfast. 249 

XXIV. Plots and Counterplots. 258 

XXV. Assault and Battery. 270 

XXVI. Juve Hears Confessions.278 

XXVII. Juve’s Bag.290 

XXVIII. The Decoy.297 

XXIX. The “Ever-Evasive” Escapes Again . 309 









THE LONG 
ARM OF FANTOMAS 


CHAPTER I 

A PROMISING JOB 

. . Six, seven, eight, nine, ten; there you are!” 

“And there’s your bill back in exchange; Monsieur 
Moche, I thank you.” 

“It’s I should thank you” 

“Not at all, not at all! . . . Your leave, Monsieur Moche, 
to count them over again on my side? Ten thousand 
francs, quite a sum of money!” 

“My word, yes, my man; so that clears your budget, eh?” 

“Please don’t think I mistrust you because I check the 
notes; it’s the usual thing.” 

“Go on, go on; don’t apologise.” 

The bank collector deposited his peaked cap on a straw- 
bottomed chair beside him, mopped his streaming brow, and 
moistening his thumb with a rapid, eminently professional 
movement, passed one by one between his fingers the ten 
big blue bank notes his debtor had just paid over to him. 

The heat was stifling; it was the 15th of May—settling 
day, and about four o’clock of the afternoon. 

Bernard, an employe at the Comptoir National, was 
nearly at the end of his day’s round when he reached M. 
Moche’s abode, which lay at the far end of the quartier , 
No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau. 

The man had climbed the stairs slowly. On the fourth 
floor right was a door with a brass plate on which was 
inscribed: 


7 


8 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


Moche, Advocate 

The description was only roughly indicative of the pro¬ 
fessional status of the tenant of the fourth floor. M. Moche 
was indeed an advocate, but not an advocate borne on the 
rolls of the Cour d’Appel, a pleader affiliated to the Paris 
bar and consequently bound by the strict rules of the 
profession; he was an advocate in the bare, literal sense of 
the word, leading persons of some perspicacity to surmise 
that M. Moche was in actual fact merely an ordinary 
business agent. 

Nor was the impression produced on a visitor entering 
M. Moche’s domicile such as to modify the supposition. 
A real barrister’s chambers are in the main very much like 
any middle-class private house, whereas M. Moche’s office, 
or to be more precise, M. Moche’s offices, bore the unmis¬ 
takable stamp of a place of business. 

The first room you entered was divided in two by a 
partition pierced by wicket-windows, the lower portion 
being solid, the upper consisting of a lattice-work of stout 
bars. Behind could be seen rows and rows of deed-boxes 
and bundles of papers ranged on big shelves. In this room 
M. Moche generally sat, and whenever the outer door opened 
he would follow suit by throwing open a little window and 
popping out his head to take stock of the visitor. 

Anyone who had ever seen M. Moche, or even his head 
only framed in the window opening, could never forget the 
man, for the advocate of the Rue Saint-Fargeau possessed 
a physiognomy that was highly characteristic. 

His features, prematurely wrinkled, betrayed his age to 
be a good fifty. Following the fashion of ministerial officers 
of former days, M. Moche wore on his cheeks a pair of 
short, bushy whiskers, of a reddish hue that made them 
strongly resemble a rabbit’s paws. His rather prominent 
nose, under which a black smudge of snuff was invariably 
to be found, carried a pair of enormous, round, gold-rimmed 
spectacles. Atop of his skull, which one guessed to be 
completely bald, was perched a badly made, badly kept 
wig, ragged at the temples and unduly flattened at the 
crown, whereon the wearer found it necessary from time to 
time to balance a little velvet skull-cap. 


A PROMISING JOB 


9 


Had it not been for the shifty eyes that were never at 
rest for an instant, M. Moche might have been taken for a 
perfectly honest man; yet his old-maidish manner, his 
soft, silky address, his often exaggerated politeness, his 
trick of rubbing his hands and bending his back before 
visitors, somehow modified any such favourable impression. 

Still, as a matter of fact, despite his unpleasing exterior, 
M. Moche had earned an excellent reputation in the quartier. 
He was a serviceable, obliging old fellow, occasionally over 
inquisitive about other folks’ business, but as a rule ready 
enough to do a kindness. Many a one in the neighbourhood 
had had recourse to him at one time or another for little 
loans of money, granted, it is fair to say, at quite reasonable 
rates of interest, and none had come to any harm at the 
hands of the old man of business. 

The truth is, M. Moche was richer than people might 
suppose, judging by the appearance of his abode on the 
fourth floor, a quite modest set of apartments. Apart from 
the outer room with the barred and windowed partition, 
the accommodation included a second apartment, a trifle 
larger, a trifle more pretentious, which was honoured with 
the title of drawing room. One or two armchairs of worn 
and faded leather and a round table with a gas chandelier 
over it made up the furniture. The room had two windows 
looking on the street, and affording a superb view over the 
northern parts of the city and the fortifications running 
parallel with the Boulevard Mortier. 

The third room of the flat was M. Moche’s bedroom, a 
chamber rarely occupied, however, for its tenant frequently 
slept from home, and appeared to utilize his quarters in the 
Rue Saint-Fargeau merely as a place for interviewing 
callers and conducting his business affairs in general. M. 
Moche, in fact, was entitled to use more than one address, 
and it was matter of common knowledge that he was owner 
of a house in the La Chapelle district. 

. . . The collector had finished his verification of the 
total, and declared it to be correct. Then he added, as he 
turned to take leave of M. Moche: 

“There, my day’s work’s done, or as good as done; I’ve 
only another flight to climb in your house, and then back 
to the bank as fast as I can go, for I’m behind my time 
already.” 


10 


THE LONG ARM OF FAN TOMAS 

At the words, M. Moche looked at the man with an air 
of surprise. 

“You have a payment to collect on the floor above, he 
asked, “and from whom, pray?” 

Bernard consulted a little memorandum book dangling 
by a string from a button of his uniform. 

“From a M. Paulet ” 

“Oh, ho!” laughed M. Moche. 

“Yes, that’s so,” affirmed the other; ... oh, a mere 
trifle, a matter of 27 francs!” 

“Well, good luck to you,” concluded the old man 
philosophically, closing the wicket, as the bank employe 
took his leave with a bow and a final word of polite¬ 
ness: 

“Hoping to meet you again, sir!” 

Left alone—he kept neither housekeeper nor office-boy 
—the old fellow stretched himself in one of the old leather- 
covered armchairs in the dining room. Through the open 
window came a breath of cool air. M. Moche sat in his 
shirt sleeves, enjoying the evening freshness, and presently 
took advantage of his momentary leisure to inhale a huge 
pinch of snuff. Not a sound came from without—vehicles 
are few and far between in the Rue Saint-Fargeau—and only 
faint and far away in the distance could be caught the 
occasional tinkle of the bells of the electric trams that, in 
this remote quarter of Paris, link up the outer suburbs with 
the central districts of the capital. 

Suddenly, M. Moche started violently; from the floor 
above a dull, heavy thud reached his ear. He found no 
difficulty in identifying the sound—it was that of some 
heavy object falling on the floor above his head. The old 
man scratched his chin and muttered half aloud: 

“It’s a piece of furniture overset ... or a body!” 

For a minute or two he stood hesitating, but M. Moche 
was a man of a curious and inquiring turn of mind. 

Abandoning the siesta he was proposing to enjoy, he 
crept cautiously from the salon, and crossed the outer room 
of the flat, which opened directly on the landing; then, 
stepping noiselessly in his felt slippers, he climbed the stairs 
leading to the upper floor without a sound. 

On the fifth floor of No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau, there 
had been residing for some weeks, in a pretty enough, 


A PROMISING JOB 


11 


albeit cheap, set of rooms, two individuals who ap¬ 
peared at first blush to be just an amiable pair of turtle¬ 
doves. 

They were quite young; the united ages of the two 
would barely have equalled that of M. Moche! The man 
looked twenty-three at most; his companion, a dainty, 
slim little person, a brunette with great dark eyes, had 
seen some sixteen summers at the outside. 

They were lover and mistress, their names, his Paulet, 
hers Nini. The pair had set up house together in the Rue 
Saint-Fargeau after their union one Easter eve in the 
tenderest, but unconsecrated bonds of love. The two had 
known each other from childhood. Paulet was the son of 
a worthy woman who kept the porter’s lodge at a big house 
in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. Nini lived in the same 
house, whither she had come as quite a child with her 
mother, a respectable working woman, Mme. Guinon by 
name, widow of an employe on the railway. 

Nini was the youngest of a large family; they had been 
five brothers and sisters, but two having died at an early 
age, Mme. Guinon had only three surviving children. The 
two elder, Firmaine and Alfred, were in regular employment, 
the former at a mantua-maker’s in the Rue de la Paix, the 
latter with a bookbinder in the Rue des Grands-Augustins; 
but Nini, a child of an uncontrolled and capricious temper 
and a venturesome and vicious disposition, could never 
acquire the habit of regular work, no matter how light. 
Instead of going apprentice, the girl had preferred to run 
the streets in company with the most outrageous young 
scamps, boys and girls, of the quartier. 

This was the very thing to attract and fascinate Paulet, 
the concierge’s son, who, too, as the phrase goes, had a 
wild “bee in his bonnet,” and who from his teens upwards 
had been over and over again told by the flash girls of La 
Chapelle that he was far too pretty a lad ever to do any 
work. 

For all that, Paulet was scarcely to be styled an Adonis; 
slenderly built and under the middle height, he had into 
the bargain a pasty complexion, colourless hair and a pair 
of pale, watery eyes. Still, the features were well cut 
almost refined. It was a common saying in the Rue de la 
Goutte-d’Or that for sure his mother must have gone 


12 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

wrong one day with a man of quality to have brought such 
a piece of goods into the world. 

In a word, Paulet was the women’s darling, because not 
only had the lad pretty manners of his own, but an inex¬ 
haustible fund of high spirits and an amazing gift of the 
gab—a typical “ladies’ man” in all the abomination of 
the term . . . and in all its beauty! 

The whole La Chapelle quarter was stirred to its depths 
when Paulet seduced little Nini Guinon, and had there 
and then resolved to set up house with the girl. There 
had been some violent scenes with the child’s family; 
Mme. Guinon, in particular, had been profoundly grieved 
at the catastrophe. But there, one must learn to take 
things as they come—and she had resigned herself to the 
inevitable. 

As a matter of fact, for the two months the pair had been 
living together as man and wife, the lovers appeared to have 
grown quite well behaved. Nini kept her little home in 
decent order, Paulet worked now and then at his trade of 
stone-mason, which he had learnt once upon a time in a 
mighty haphazard fashion. Such at any rate was the 
official, ostensible occupation of the tenant of the fifth floor. 
But his real business, one which sometimes of evenings he 
constrained his pretty mistress to follow, was, may we 
surmise, of a less reputable sort. 

An angle in the line of house-front enabled anyone looking 
out from the staircase window to see what was going on 
in the kitchen of the flat occupied by this dubious couple. 
At the moment M. Moche reached this window, Paulet and 
Nini were engaged in a highly animated conversation; 
and, be sure, the old man looked on and listened with all 
his eyes and ears. 

M. Moche was lost in astonishment at the strange attitude 
of the two and the amazing things they were saying! Bend¬ 
ing down over the sink, Nini and Paulet were letting the 
water pour over each other’s hands, which they were soaping 
in feverish haste, while red soapsuds dripped between their 
fingers into the trough. 

Paulet was saying: 

“Buck up, Nini! Don’t let the flies grow on you . . . 
once the stuff dries on our fingers, there’d be the devil’s 
own job to get it off afterwards!” 


A PROMISING JOB 


13 

“I know that,” muttered Nini in a trembling voice. 
Then she added: 

“But, look, I’ve got some on my apron, too.” 

“Lather it well,” her lover told her, “and if it won’t 
come off, we’ll chuck the thing in the fire.” 

Paulet half turned round and reached down from a shelf 
a heavy hammer stained with blood, which he set to work 
to sponge carefully. 

“That’s mighty dangerous, too,” he observed, “if it’s not 
wiped clean.” 

M. Moche could form a pretty shrewd notion of what 
had occurred before he arrived. Mechanically he mounted 
the three or four steps that still separated him from the 
landing of the floor occupied by Paulet and Nini. 

The door stood ajar—a crazy piece of imprudence! M. 
Moche pushed it open softly and made his way stealthily 
along the little passage at the end of which was the kitchen. 

Suddenly, in the half dark, his foot struck against some¬ 
thing. M. Moche, his sight getting accustomed to the 
dim light, gazed down at this “soihething” with haggard 
eyes—it was the body of a man lying quite still, face down¬ 
wards on the floor!—the body of the bank collector! 
At the back of the neck showed a fearful wound. 

The thing was beyond a doubt—Paulet had murdered 
the employe from the Comptoir National. 

The unfortunate man’s wallet lay beside him, wide open, 
and M. Moche could see that its contents had not yet been 
touched. The bank notes stuck half out of the case, like 
the contents of a parcel that has been ripped up; you had 
only to stoop to help yourself. It was plain Paulet and 
Nini, their victim once dead, had merely shut to the door, 
without making sure it was fastened, calm and confident 
in their conviction that nobody in the house, empty at 
this hour of the day, would come in to surprise them. 

The deed once done, they had deemed the most urgent 
thing was to set to work instantly to cleanse their hands 
and clothes in order to get rid of the evidences of their 
guilt at the earliest possible moment. The corpse lay 
absolutely motionless. Not a doubt the bank employe 
had been killed outright with one blow. 

During the few seconds M. Moche stood hesitating before 
the ghastly sight, he could still hear the two accomplices 


14 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

minutely discussing the details of their cleansing operations. 
But there was something else that, even more than his 
curiosity to overhear what they were saying, held the old 
advocate’s attention—to wit, the bank notes that over¬ 
flowed the wallet, that were all but out of their receptacle, 
that seemed to be actually offering themselves to whosoever 
cared to appropriate them. 

It was a strong temptation—and M. Moche did not 
resist it! 

Creeping like a cat, hiding in the semi-darkness of the 
little passage, with a thousand precautions, he advanced 
step by step; he reached out his hairy hand, his fingers 
shook as they touched the brass fittings of the open wallet; 
then his hand fell on the bundle of notes. Suddenly he 
sprang back in alarm—Paulet and Nini had stopped talking. 
Had they heard him? 

But presently the same excited conversation began again. 
Whereupon M. Moche, with an ugly smile on his face, crept 
down again to his own floor, bolted his door and counted 
his spoils. Yes, it was a fine stroke of business; not only 
did he recover his own ten thousand-franc notes, but with 
them were ten others of the same denomination! 

“Ha, ha! Money well invested and that brings in cent, 
per cent, on the nail, or I don’t know what I’m talking 
about!” M. Moche muttered in delight, his eyes sparkling 
with greed. 

But next moment, the old man turned ghastly pale. 
The front-door bell had rung! Instinctively, M. Moche 
crammed into his pocket the notes he had just stolen so 
audaciously, and with the aplomb of a hardened thief. 

Then he stood stock still, waiting. Would the visitor 
insist? Yes, he would; the ring was repeated. M. Moche 
had nothing to fear, for the moment at any rate; had he 
not taken the precaution to double lock the door? Still, 
he must find out what was afoot. In one second the old 
fellow had plotted the whole plan of the line of behaviour 
he must adopt. # 

“Bless my soul,” he thought to himself, “it can only 
be a caller, a client, and there is no reason why I shouldn’t 
receive him; if by any chance it were Paulet, I need only 
refuse to open and leave him to kick his heels till the police 
arrive.” 


A PROMISING JOB 15 

At the third repetition of the summons, M. Moche put 
the tentative question: 

“Who is it? What do you want?” 

Through the door the old advocate caught the sound of 
a fresh young voice asking timidly: 

“Is this M. Moche’s?” 

“Yes, madame . . . mademoiselle; but I don’t know if 
he can be seen. What is it about?” 

“A lady wishes to speak to him—about a flat to let in 
the Rue de l’Evangile.” 

Rue de I’Evangile, that was where M. Moche owned a 
property. Most certainly it would never do to send away 
this inquirer who appeared anxious to take rooms in his 
house. 

So M. Moche turned the key in the lock and half opened 
the door to make sure his visitor was alone, and that no 
one suspicious accompanied her. Evidently there was no 
cause for alarm, and the old man stepped back and threw 
the portal wide open. 

“Pray come in, mademoiselle,” he said with a bow, and 
ushered her into the little salon. 

His visitor was a young woman, quietly but elegantly 
dressed. Twenty-four at the outside, she was a tall, fair, 
pretty girl; a heavy veil partly masked the brilliance of her 
complexion of lilies and roses; she wore mourning weeds. 

Moche, after a brief survey, pointed to a chair and 
invited her to state her business. 

“Sir,” began the unknown, “at present I am living in 
the Rue des Couronnes, but on account of my work—I am 
employed in the correspondence office of a factory at 
Aubervilliers—I am anxious, very naturally, to make my 
home nearer the place where I work. Well, I have been to 
see a flat in your house in the Rue de l’Evangile that would 
suit me, provided you would consent, as the concierge led 
me to hope you would, to make a trifling alteration.” 

The girl spoke simply, equally without exaggerated 
timidity and undue assurance. 

Moche looked at her with interest, preoccupied as he 
was; still he forced himself to attend to the conversation. 
Meantime, to gain time and recover his equanimity, he 
asked: 

“Whom have I the honour to address?” 


i6 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

“True,” the young woman apologized, “I have not 
told you my name yet; I am called . . . Elisabeth Dollon.” 

The girl had pronounced the name only after a momen¬ 
tary hesitation, a fact which did not escape M. Moche’s 
perspicacity. He said nothing, but cast a long, scrutinizing 
glance at his visitor. He saw that she was colouring. 

“Mademoiselle Elisabeth Dollon” he repeated the name; 
“now it’s a curious thing, but somehow the name strikes 
me as not unfamiliar.” 

The young woman had risen, and her brows contracted; 
she seemed agitated and spoke with difficulty. 

“Forgive me, sir; but I always feel strangely moved 
whenever I have occasion to mention my name.” 

“Why, pray?” demanded M. Moche, courteously. 

“Why? Oh, sir! some years ago my name acquired a 
sad notoriety through the tragic, the lamentable deaths 
of the dearest of my family. First, my father was murdered 
under mysterious circumstances in a railway carriage; 
then it was my brother who disappeared, struck down by 
an odious criminal, who furthermore caused him to be 
accused, even after his death, of the commission of atro¬ 
cious crimes.” 

These statements, succinct as they were, sufficed to 
reanimate M. Moche’s recollection. 

“I have it,” he cried, “yes, I know . . . Dollon . . . 
the Dollon case . . . Jacques Dollon ... so he was your 
brother? Jacques Dollon, whom they called the ‘Messenger 
of Evil.’ ” 

The girl, greatly agitated by this reminder of a terrible 
past, merely nodded her head affirmatively, while great 
tears filled her eyes. 

M. Moche expressed his sympathy: “I am truly sorry, 
mademoiselle,” he said, “to have recalled such mournful 
memories to your mind; but as landlord of the house where 
you wish to take rooms, I was bound to know your name; 
but I assure you that from henceforth . . .” 

He broke off, but presently resumed: 

“You spoke just now of a small alteration in the flat 
you wish to rent.” He had guessed from the first what 
it was and was quite ready to agree. 

“You think, mademoiselle, that the five rooms of the 
vacant flat are really more than you require, and you are 


A PROMISING JOB 


17 

asking me, I feel convinced of it, to divide the premises in 
two by having a party-wall constructed ?” 

Elisabeth Dollon assented: “That, sir, is what the con¬ 
cierge led me to expect.” 

“Consider the matter settled,” declared M. Moche; “and 
accordingly, the premises being only one half as big, the 
rent wilh be proportionately less—I will ask you 400 
francs. When do you wish to move in?” 

“As soon as possible.” 

“The rooms are empty; as soon as ever the partition is 
built, you can take possession.” 

Moche went into the adjoining room and returned with 
a form of contract he had taken from one of the pigeon¬ 
holes. 

“Sign this paper, mademoiselle, if you please.” 

Elisabeth Dollon was preparing to do so when he asked 
another question in a tone of fatherly interest: “You are 
alone, eh? quite alone?” 

“Why, of course,” replied the girl, whose look of surprise 
clearly showed that she failed to understand what her 
prospective landlord would be at. 

The latter explained: “The house in the Rue de l’Evan- 
gile is let out to very desirable tenants—only respectable 
families. ... It is not for me to judge your character, 
my dear young lady, but if you did happen to have a 
‘friend,’ or several ‘friends,’ why, you must not let them 
come to see you—or not too often, at any rate.” 

Mademoiselle Dollon drew herself up. 

“Sir,” she declared, a good deal offended, “I don’t 
know what you take me for, but I am an honest woman—” 

“Well, well, I felt sure of it the moment I set eyes on 
you; but there, it’s as well to understand one another from 
the beginning ... So please sign your name there, made¬ 
moiselle”—and with his great hairy finger, M. Moche pointed 
out the place. 

This formality completed, she bade a hasty farewell to 
M. Moche, who escorted her politely to the door. 

“Brigand, scoundrel, blackguard, thief!”—a torrent of 
insults, followed by a torrent of blows . . . M. Moche was 
on the point of recrossing his threshold when he was struck 
full in the face and felled to the ground. As he lay there, 


i8 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


he felt the weight of a man’s body crushing him, holding 
him forcibly down. 

But Moche, for all his years, was a wonderfully active 
man, and quite unexpectedly nimble. In one second he 
had shaken off the incubus and leapt to the other end of the 
room, where he stood glaring at his assailant. 

It was Paulet he saw, but Paulet changed beyond recog¬ 
nition—eyes starting out of his head, mouth set hard, 
features convulsed, muscles taut. 

The lover of Nini Guinon, knife in hand, was for hurling 
himself at M. Moche, when suddenly he stopped dead. The 
sharp click of a cocked pistol had struck him motionless 
where he stood. 

Moche, quick as lightning, had not only dodged the 
villain’s furious onslaught, but had whipped a revolver from 
his pocket and pointed the weapon straight at the scoundrel’s 
breast— 

“Not another step,” he vociferated, “or I shoot you like 
a dog!” 

At the same moment a cry of anguish rang out. Behind 
Paulet appeared the face of Nini Guinon, pale and agonized; 
her two hands clutched her lover, whom she was holding 
back with all her strength. 

But the man had realized the risk involved in a fresh 
attack, and was ready to parley. The voice shook that 
came from between his clenched teeth: “Brigand!” he 
repeated, looking furiously at Moche, “brigand, give me 
back my money!” 

For a moment the old advocate entertained the idea of 
shamming ignorance, pretending not to know what the 
murderer meant by the demand. But a half-dozen words 
that fell from Nini’s lips decided him. “I saw you fumbling 
in the money-bag,” she declared, and he knew at once that 
dissimulation was useless. The wisest policy was to take 
the bull by the horns there and then—and he had his plan 
all ready, cut and dried. Best to play the game cards 
face upwards on the table. 

“No,” he declared, grimly, “I will not give you back 
the money.” 

“Ruffian!” 

“One minute ... !” 

A sardonic smile curled the old man’s lips; he cast a 


A PROMISING JOB 


19 

searching glance at Nini, questioning with which of his 
adversaries he should open the attack. They were two to 
one—was it not judicious to win one of them over to his 
side so as to reverse the superiority of numbers? 

“Poor little Nini,” M. Moche murmured in softened, 
honeyed tones, “my poor little girl, you’re in a nasty hole; 
what ever is to become of you?” 

The girl looked superciliously at the old man: “I don’t 
understand,” she told him. 

“Oh, yes! you do,” returned the advocate; “nothing 
easier to understand, my dear child; you’ll be left all alone 
in life now, it is only a question of days, perhaps of hours 
—your lover will be arrested by the police and in six 
months from now guillotined at the back of the prison of 
La Sante. To do a man in to steal his money is always a 
bad business!” 

Beside himself with rage, Paulet screamed: 

“But it was you who stole the money, you will be turned 
off, too.” 

But Moche, in the same quiet voice, yet all the while 
keeping his revolver levelled at the scoundrel’s breast, 
retorted: 

“Impossible! How prove it? Bank notes can be made 
to disappear; there’s nothing more like a thousand-franc 
note than another thousand-franc note, while the dead body 
of a bank messenger, a body stretched on the floor of a 
lodging, fifth floor No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau, the resi¬ 
dence of one Paulet by name, that’s a thing it’s not so 
easy to stuff away in a pocket-book . . . Now, what are 
you proposing to do with the corpse in question, eh, my 
young friend?” 

Paulet turned ghastly pale. Since he had done the deed, 
and especially since he had discovered there was nothing 
to be gained by it, the money having vanished, the scoun¬ 
drelly apache had completely lost his head. If only things 
had gone according to plan, the affair might well have 
been highly advantageous. Paulet had arranged it all with 
Nini—to kill the collector, to appropriate his takings and 
fly right away to foreign parts. It was good business, a 
job well worth the trouble. But, lo and behold! the 
unlucky and unexpected interference of old Moche upset 
all their plans, for the old ruffian had left in the wallet 


20 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

nothing but a few small notes—just enough and no more, 
to pay for a little spree. 

It was M. Moche, not a doubt of it, who had stolen the 
money . . . Paulet was to pull the chestnuts out of the fire 
and the other was to reap the benefit . . . Nini, in fact, had 
actually seen the man making off! If at that very moment 
the old man had not had a visitor, Paulet would have hurried 
down at once and had it out with him there and then.. 

In broken phrases and a breathless voice, Paulet detailed 
all this to the old advocate, who only smiled enigmatically. 
After a pause, the latter spoke again: 

“You are a fine, brave fellow, Paulet—a bit of a scamp, 
too, but who can blame you? It’s just your little way, you 
know. . . . Now, my man, I’m going to make an offer; 
put your knife back in your pocket, I will clap my revolver 
in its case—we shall be more comfortable so for talking; 
let’s sit down one on either end of the table, and perhaps 
we can come to some arrangement.” 

The young brigand was at a loss, as he gazed alternately 
at the old lawyer with the sharp eyes and at Nini, who was 
prompting him in hurried, urgent tones: 

“Don’t be a fool, Paulet; do what the old ape says. 
He’s an artful, knowing beggar, certain sure he’ll find the 
trick to get us out of the hole we’re in. . . .” 

Moche had caught what Nini said. He stepped up boldly 
to Paulet, with outstretched hands, though the young man 
had not yet pocketed his weapon: 

“There, you see, I trust you,” he declared. “I offer you 
my hand, mate, as a good comrade—shake, my man, we’ll 
fix up things yet.” 

Paulet gave in. Ten minutes later, seated at the round 
table in M. Moche’s dining room, the advocate and his two 
visitors, Paulet and Nini, were just finishing a bottle of 
wine together. 

They clinked glasses for the last time: 

“Well, then,” demanded Paulet, “it’s a sure thing, Moche, 
old man, you’re going to help me?” 

Moche, with a superb and impressive gesture, laid his 
heavy, hairy hand on Nini’s touzled curls, where she sat 
beside him: 

“I swear it, on your lady-love’s glorious tresses, Paulet, 
and that’s as binding as the Blessed Sacrament!” 


A PROMISING JOB 


21 


“All the same,” Paulet warned his mistress with an air 
at once peremptory and timid, “you’ll have to shut your 
jaw tight and not go gassing about the job in hand.” 

Nini nodded, laid a finger on her lip, and with a shrug 
and a look of scorn: 

“D’you really suppose,” she scoffed, “I should be such 
a silly goose as all that?” 

She said no more, for the two men were deep in con¬ 
fabulation. 

Moche was asseverating: 

“I tell you this, Paulet, we’re in for a gorgeous fine thing; 
don’t you imagine I’ve come to my present respectable 
and respected age without seeing a thing or two and learn¬ 
ing pretty thoroughly what’s what in this world of ours! A 
smart customer like you, with a smart chap like me to 
help him, why, we’ll play some fine games together!” 

Paulet agreed, smiling a well satisfied smile. But one 
detail still troubled him: 

“The body,” he asked, “the fellow’s body . . . upstairs; 
what’s to be done with it, eh?” 

“Never you worry, Paulet, there’s more tricks than one 
in papa Moche’s pack, trust him for that. If you do what 
I tell you, the ‘cold meat’ upstairs in your passage will 
be fixed up, never fear, so he’ll never come back again: 
it’ll take a mighty clever devil to find him, I can tell you!” 

“But I don’t understand,” objected Paulet. 

“What’s that matter?” snapped the other. 

The old scamp got up, stuffed his hands in his pockets— 
an ordinary enough gesture seemingly, but in reality to 
make sure his revolver was still safe in the inside-pocket 
of his breeches. 

Paulet had risen, and he, too, thrust his hands in his 
pockets, in one of which he mechanically felt for his knife, 
which lay there open. All very well to have made peace, 
to have concluded a treaty of alliance over a bottle of wine 
—prudence is a virtue all the same! 

But neither Paulet nor M. Moche had any warlike inten¬ 
tions; the two malefactors had made up their minds it 
was to their mutual advantage to help one another. 

“As a fact, you are a mason by trade, Paulet, aren’t 
you?” 

“H’m, that depends . . .” 


22 


THE LONG ARiyi OF FANTOMAS 

“Could you undertake to build a wall, a stone wall, a 
brick wall, a lath and plaster partition, any guess contrap¬ 
tion of the sort?” 

“Bless my soul, yes,” laughed Paulet, “provided you give 
me the needful supply of stone or brick or plaster and 
lime for the job.” 

Moche clapped his arm on Paulet’s shoulder: 

“Well, my boy, that settles it; there’s not a minute to 
lose, I engage from to-night.” 

Nini Guinon, who had been waiting the result of the 
colloquy with no small anxiety, Nini, whose gaze fixed 
first on one, then on the other of the speakers, tender and 
passionate on Paulet, questioning and admiring on M. 
Moche, and who had kept her curiosity forcibly in check 
for all this time, could no longer restrain the question: 

“But what are you going to do?” 

Moche looked first at her, then at Paulet: 

“You’ll see what we’re going to do all in good time,” he 
announced, “but I can tell you one thing—what we’re going 
to do is a mighty promising job.” 


CHAPTER II 


A NIGHT AFFRAY 

The Boulevard de Belleville at nine o’clock at night pre¬ 
sents a grim and forbidding aspect. Long rows of flicker¬ 
ing gaslamps cast wan reflections over the far-stretching 
pavements, on which sinister figures—drunken men, de¬ 
jected-looking street-walkers and apaches—show momen¬ 
tarily in the ruddy glow from the lighted window of dram¬ 
shops of the sort Belleville used to build or American bars 
of a later fashion. 

Along the sidewalk, with slow steps and head bent in deep 
thought, moved a young man of twenty-five or so, with a 
fine, intelligent face, but so preoccupied an air he scarce 
seemed to know where his feet were carrying him. The 
man was talking to himself; anyone overhearing his mono¬ 
logue, or reading, if that could be, the thoughts that 
surged within, would have been amazed, perhaps terrified. 

“An odd thing, life! an odd thing and a repulsive!” he 
was muttering. “Six months ago, seven months at most 
—God knows how I have lived meantime—I was a King, 
I was greeted with a string of pompous titles; gold jingled 
in my pockets ... Six months ago I was on the path 
to glory, the highest glory J could conceive of; was 
on the road, with my old friend Juve, after saving the 
Sovereign of Hesse-Weimar, to share the honour of Fan- 
tomas’ arrest! in a word, I was in the full tide of success. 
Then the luck changed, that devil Fantomas eluded us— 
more than that, he contrived that Juve was nabbed in 
place of himself. Juve in prison, I am myself liable to 
arrest as an accomplice, forced to fly, to take to hiding. 
The good days are over and done for me. I, ex-King of 
Hesse-Weimar as I am, find myself, this eighteenth day of 
May, starving, without a penny-piece in my pocket, and in 
imminent danger of being gaoled ... oh, instability of 
human fortune!” 

The young man was Jerome Fandor. The excellent 
23 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


24 

journalist’s history to date was summed up in the few 
words his despair had just wrung from his lips. By 
Juve’s arrest under the guise of Fantomas, and that thanks 
to the deep duplicity of the Grand Duchess Alexandra, 
Jerome Fandor had been plunged into the most alarming 
embarrassments. 

That Juve was really Fantomas, Fandor had not, of 
course, for one moment admitted. To him the thing was a 
sheer impossibility, a supposition not only inconceivable, 
but positively insane. But alas! the conviction he held as 
to his friend’s innocence, and even the hope he enter¬ 
tained that Juve would soon succeed in exposing the mon¬ 
strous error whereof he was the victim, did little or nothing 
towards bettering Fandor’s personal predicament. 

On leaving the Gare du Nord, as they were carrying off 
Juve to prison, the young man had clearly realized that he 
must disappear unless he wished to be clapped in gaol, 
too. Now it would never do for him to be arrested, in the 
first place because, if still at liberty, he could perhaps help 
Juve to get out of the mess, secondly, because now Juve 
was under lock and key, he, Fandor, was the only one left 
to fight Fantomas and paralyse the machinations of the 
brigand whom he still held to be at liberty, inasmuch as 
he refused to believe Juve to be Fantomas. 

At the time the journalist had some money in his pos¬ 
session. Without a moment’s delay he had changed his 
costume, and dressed out as a “ragged rascal,” had plunged 
into the underworld, the social stratum where an artful 
and wary fugitive can most easily cover up his tracks. 
This done, he had waited events. Day followed day, 
however, without bringing him any further information. 
Juve was in prison, the authorities still believing him to 
be Fantomas, and this evening Fandor, who had hitherto 
been living by casual odd jobs, was penniless and starving; 
what was he to do, he asked himself. 

The young man continued to follow the Boulevard de 
Belleville, hesitating between the notion of going to find 
a night’s lodging under the arch of a bridge and his fear 
of being run in by a police-patrol, an eventuality he was 
far from desiring, when his attention was attracted to a 
passer-by, a woman who brushed past him, walking very 
fast, and rapidly‘outdistanced him. 


A NIGHT AFFRAY 


25 

“Hello!” muttered Fandor, looking after the form of 
the young woman, “doubtless a Paris workgirl; now, if 
I were really what I seem, an apache, I should profit by the 
opportunity. A little woman of this sort would be better 
in bed at this time of night than out and about on the 
Boulevard de Belleville! and she carries a bag in her hand 
—how imprudent! I’d wager twopence something will 
happen to the girl.” 

Jerome Fandor possessed something of that extraordinary 
instinct to be found in some veteran detectives. He seemed 
to have a presentiment of crime, to divine beforehand the 
possibility of acts of violence; and being a man of cour¬ 
age, he never failed to forestall and try to prevent the 
mischief. Mechanically, Fandor followed the young 
woman, keeping some distance behind, and as he went, 
took stock of her appearance. Small black toque, black 
jacket, a flowing veil, a slim umbrella, small shoes, a quite 
simple frock. 

“A workgirl, a respectable workgirl, on her way home 
after doing a bit of overtime . . . Good!—but, well, one 
may be mistaken!” 

The young woman Jerome Fandor was following had 
just been accosted by a street-walker, a little dark-haired 
creature with a touzled head, outrageously powdered and 
painted, clad in the typical spotted corsage of her class, the 
swaying skirts, the apron with scarlet bib, its pockets 
bulging, stuffed full of silk handkerchiefs. 

“Hello! hello!” thought Fandor, “so here’s my work¬ 
girl in very odd company!—oh! dear, oh! dear.” 

Next moment the young fellow darted forward at a run. 
From the shadow two men had just sprung out on the 
women; seizing them roughly by the arms, they were 
hustling and dragging them away. 

The street-walker put her head down, fighting hard, 
but without uttering a sound; the workwoman gave a 
piercing shriek for help. 

To fly to the rescue, to save the woman in this perilous 
strait, Jerome Fandor’s mind was made up in an instant. 

Someone else came hurrying up behind him at the same 
moment. A voice shouted: 

“Have at ’em, mate!” 

“A gallant working man,” thought Fandor, as he 


26 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


caught a glimpse of a young man running across the road 
dressed in a blue jacket, the sort plumbers wear; “there's 
still honest folk left who won’t let women be molested.” 

But the time for action was come; he was level by now 
with the two women, who were still struggling, and cried in 
a peremptory voice to the assailants: 

“Let the women go!—or I strike.” 

At this the two bullies, finding it was their turn to be 
attacked, suddenly loosed hold of their victims and wheel¬ 
ing round to face Fandor and his companion, stood on the 
defensive. 

In an instant Jerome Fandor realized the state of affairs; 
one of the fellows was putting a hand in his pocket—his 
purpose was manifest. 

“By God!” yelled the young man, “none of your tricks 
here!—or you’ll make me angry.” 

Fandor was wrestling savagely, locked in a close embrace 
with the fellow who had first laid hands on the workgirl; 
behind him he could hear the laboured breath and fierce 
cries and oaths of the working man who had hurried to 
the rescue, and knew that the same battle was raging be¬ 
tween him and the second ruffian. 

A few seconds, and all was over. 

At the very moment Fandor, with a masterly trip, 
stretched his adversary on the ground, where he held him 
down by main force, he heard the workman give an exultant 
shout of victory: 

“Ah, ha! I’ve got you, you hound!” 

Jerome Fandor looked round. 

“Bravo, mate!” he cried, “so you’ve downed your man, 
too?” 

A thick, hoarse, common, ignoble voice replied: 

“Downed him, have I . . . yes, by gosh! and what’s 
more I’m busy fixing the bloke up workmanlike, I am!” 

“Workmanlike, eh?”—and Fandor looked, and could 
scarcely believe his eyes. In the calmest way possible, 
but with surprising dexterity, the man he had taken for a 
working man had whipped a coil of rope from his pocket 
and tied up the victim of his prowess. 

“And now for your man!” -he cried, pointing to the 
wretch Fandor held captive under his knee, and who had 
now ceased to offer the slightest resistance. 


A NIGHT AFFRAY 27 

“Must truss him up, too—but I think we’d best not do 
’em in . . 

“Well and good!” thought Fandor, “why, by Gad! this 
beats cock-fighting; it’s just the finest scoop I’ve ever 
been in!” 

The other went on: “It’s the street officers, look’ee 
—the swine! I just love it when I can spoil their little 
game. And it’s all to the good for our gals, eh?” 

“For sure it is,” Fandor agreed, and getting to his feet, 
for his companion had by this time roped up his man, too, 
and rolled him into the gutter, not without planting a 
shrewd kick or two on his carcase, the journalist proceeded 
to scrutinize his companion. 

He was not a working man at all! True, he wore a 
plumber’s short blue jacket, but it only needed to note his 
flat cap, his brown muffler, to say nothing of the broad red 
sash round his waist, his velvet Zouave breeches, his ele¬ 
gant, down-at-heel shoes, the whole vicious cut of the 
fellow, to guess his vile trade. 

“A fancy-man!” thought Fandor, “it was a fancy-man, 
a bully, was his ally! . . . and the two we’ve just planted 
on the sidewalk are purely and simply a couple of police 
officers!” 

But once more the other broke in on his reflections. 

“’Pon my soul!” he burst out, drawing Fandor away 
with a friendly grip on his shoulder, “it’s a rum business, 
this here! ... all the same let’s pad the hoof, mate, the 
boulevard ain’t a healthy place for us just now, if more 
cops should come up.” 

So Fandor and his companion raced down the street at 
tip-top speed and dodged in and out of a maze of dark 
alleys ... In five minutes the apache called a halt. 

“Easy does it now,” he panted, “they’ll never nab us 
here.” 

And then, suddenly confidential: “You know, don’t 
you, why my donna stopped the wench?” 

Fandor, without showing a trace of surprise, replied 
emphatically in the negative. 

“Why, look’ee, old chap, I’d told Nini—Nini my doxy’s 
called—I’d told her when I saw your girl go by,” “Look, 
sure as my name’s Paulet, there goes a wench who is bound 
to have a bit of money in her bag! . . . you go and talk 


28 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


to her, pitch her a tale, tell her you have a sick brat at 
home, some jeremy diddler or other, eh? and entice 
her down a dark street—and you and I’ll deal with the 
baggage.” 

Spitting on the ground to give more weight to his words, 
the apache Paulet—for Paulet it was—added: “I take my 
oath I never dreamt she was a night-bird, I took her for a 
workgirl by her duds.” 

Fandor was far from liking the state of affairs, as he 
realized more and more clearly the nature of the mistake 
made. 

His companion, Paulet, evidently the “bully” of the 
street-walker Nini who had accosted the young work¬ 
woman, took him, Fandor, for the latter’s protector, while 
the two men, whom he had supposed to be apaches, were 
just simply guardians of the peace wanting to arrest the 
two women . . . 

To tell truth, Jerome Fandor was half sorry he had res¬ 
cued the two unfortunates, but, for all his philosophy, he 
was still more amazed to have involuntarily become the 
antagonist of the officers of the law and the accomplice of 
a Belleville “ponce.” 

“What’s dead certain,” Paulet summed up the matter, 
“it’s another evening wasted, old son; our two wenches 
took their hook during the fight, and I’ll wager they’ll say 
they’re too much knocked out of time to put in another 
stroke of business to-night—above all as Nini’s none too 
fond of work at the best of times. And so, hang it all! 
we’ll just go drink a glass and have a snack, eh?” 

This last proposal was eminently agreeable to Fandor; 
it was six and thirty hours since he had broken his fast, 
and a supper, be it in company of an apache or no, was so 
much to the good. 

“The fact is,” he put in, however, for he had no desire 
for a quarrel with Paulet after their liquor, “the fact is, 
for the moment I’m stoney-broke, cleaned out, not a brass 
farthing to my name.” 

But Paulet was in a generous mood. “Right O!” he 
cried, “I’ve got the dibs; it‘s my turn this time ... to 
Korn’s, is it?” 

For a bite of bread the unhappy young man would have 
gone anywhere whatsoever. “That’s the ticket,” he agreed, 


A NIGHT AFFRAY 


29 

at once, adding by way of acting up to his role: “Maybe, 
we shall meet some of the boys there?” 

At the Rendez-vous des Aminches, the famous tavern kept 
by old man Korn, the two portals of which opened respec¬ 
tively on the Boulevard de la Chapelle and the Rue de la 
Charbonniere, Fandor did not at first notice any of the 
“boys”—or rather he made a pretence of knowing nobody. 

In the low-ceiled, smoky room, where seated in state, old 
Korn, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his bald 
head shining in the gaslight, was rinsing out glasses stained 
with the lees of red wine in a basinful of greasy water, 
Fandor had recognized, with a surprise that bordered on 
stupefaction, a whole gang of people whom he knew very 
well. While Paulet was pushing him along towards a little 
table, where sat an extraordinary-looking individual, head 
like a broken-down tipstaff surmounted by a well-worn 
wig, nose decorated with an enormous pair of spectacles, 
frowsy mutton-chop whiskers framing the face, whom the 
apache greeted with a “Good-day, Moche, old cock!” 
Fandor had been taking stock of the other customers. 

Later on, when Paulet, after ordering a litre of “Red 
Seal,” bread and cheese and Bologna sausage, was describ¬ 
ing the late encounter to old Moche and his meeting with the 
“new chum,” Fandor seized the opportunity to scrutinize 
the group of persons gathered at tie further end of the 
boozing-ken. 

So, the old gang was come together again? again the 
same lot haunted Pere Korn’s tavern? Fandor was dumb¬ 
founded to meet once more at the Rendez-vous des Aminches 
the very same ill-omened crowd of apaches that had over 
and over again been mixed up in the crimes and wild ad¬ 
ventures of Fantomas; he could only just contrive to play 
up to his assumed character and pay decent attention to 
what Paulet was saying, who meantime was praising him 
up to the skies to M. Moche. 

“Certain sure,” Paulet was asseverating, “yorill pay 
for drinks, M. Moche . . . yes, yes, your Honour, never 
say no! ... But look’ee here, that chap yonder—I don’t 
so much as know his blessed name—well, there’d be some¬ 
thing to be made out of him, eh?. . . There’s no flies on 
that bloke, you bet. Why in two twos and a couple of 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


30 

shakes, crack! he’d downed his gentleman, let me tell you 
that, sir. Two constables, sir, and we chucked ’em both 
in the gutter. Cost me a bit of good rope, it did—but 
there, I don’t care.” 

M. Moche, sipping an extraordinary mixture of brandy 
and absinthe, applauded Paulet’s narrative, and then turn¬ 
ing to Fandor, asked: 

“So, young sir, things going well with you, eh?” The 
question roused Fandor from a deep fit of abstraction. 
The old fellow repeated his remark. 

“H’m, no!” Fandor confessed, “by no manner of means! 

. . . cleaned out!” 

“And you can write?” 

With the utmost seriousness the journalist declared he 
could—“and none so badly either,” he added, “I write 
quite a good hand.” 

For some seconds the old man sat lost in thought; then 
he brought out his proposal: “Now, what would you say if 
I asked you to come and work with me? I am a business 
agent, yes, a business agent—in every kind of business, 
you must understand. ... In one word, if you care to 
sleep to-night at my place, why, there’s a pile of papers in 
the garret, where you’d be comfortable enough . . . say, 
does that suit your book, my lad?” 

For the moment Fandor hesitated. He asked himself 
who and what was this dreadful person, and for what 
shady work was he engaging him—on Paulet’s recommenda¬ 
tion, Paulet a common “bully,” and that after he had just 
heard how he had been an active participator in an assault 
on officers of the law. 

But Paulet gave him a nudge: “Go on,” urged the 
young blackguard; “you’re cleaned out, ain’t you? so you 
risk nothing, and you’ll rake in the rhino scratching paper 
at the old put’s—he’s rolling in money, you ask any of 
the blokes here.” 

So it seemed old Moche, who frequented Korn’s tavern, 
knew all the crew that met there. 

Jerome Fandor’s mind was made up. No matter what 
adventures might befall him if he agreed to “work” for 
M. Moche, he ought by no means to neglect the opportunity 
thus offered for renewing his observation of the machina¬ 
tions of this amiable confraternity. 


A NIGHT AFFRAY 


31 


“M’sieur Moche,” he gave his answer, purposely exag¬ 
gerating his vulgar trick of speech, “as you might say, sir, 
your offer does me proud—and for that there sleeping in 
your garret, I won’t say no; for all it’s May time, it’s none 
too cosy, it ain’t, dossing under the stars.” 

M. Moche, who wore an enormous great ring on his 
finger hammered noisily on the zinc-topped table. 

“Korn,” he commanded, “another go of the same all 
round; it’s my treat, I’ve just enlisted a new clerk.” 


CHAPTER III 


SHADY SCHEMES 

Elbows resting on the hand-rail of the bridge, a man stood 
gazing down pensively at the flowing water. 

It was M. Moche. The old man was even dirtier than 
usual, his hat crammed down over his ears—a huge topper, 
all dinted and dulled; his brow was wrinkled in deep and 
serious thought. It was eleven in the forenoon when the 
usurer of the Rue Saint-Fargeau had taken up his position 
on the foot-bridge thrown across the narrow sluice-gates 
separating the basin of La Villette from the Canal de 
l’Ourcq and connecting the two sections of the Rue de 
Crimee. Heedless of anything passing about him, M. Moche 
looked down at the current, in which the man’s common, 
cunning features were reflected as in a mirror. But at the 
same time he kept ever and anon casting furtive glances 
towards the bottom of the street. 

At last the old fellow shook off his lethargy. From the 
far end of the Rue de Crimee he had caught sight of a man 
dressed in a long white blouse who was pushing before him 
a wheel-barrow loaded up with a workman’s tools. The 
barrow bumped up and down over the uneven pavement 
as the man advanced slowly along the road, for the load 
seemed a heavy one. Still, in course of time the modest 
vehicle reached the bridge. The workman let go the 
handles, mopped his brow—it was a blazing hot day—and 
then, after a glance round, he saw M. Moche and stepped 
up to him. 

It was plain enough the two had met by appointment, 
for they seemed in no way surprised at the rencontre. The 
pair began talking in low tones: 

“You were waiting for me, M. Moche?” 

“Why, yes, I was waiting for you, waiting without much 
hoping you’d come; still I waited.” 

32 


SHADY SCHEMES 


33 

The workman mopped his forehead again, muttering in a 
weary voice: 

“I’ve had the devil’s own job of it this morning, I can 
tell you!” 

“Poor fellow 1 ” observed Moche, a note of ironical com¬ 
miseration in his voice. Then the old business man went 
on: “It’s uncommon seldom, all the same, one sees you 
sweating yourself; when a man has a ‘bee in his bonnet’ 
like you . . 

The workman laughed: 

“Say a hiveful of ’em, Pere Moche, and you’ll be nearer 
truth. God! I can’t deny it, hard work’s not my strong 
point.” 

But old Moche, suddenly putting on an air of sternness 
and anxiety, questioned: 

“Tell me, Paulet, how goes the work in question?” 

The young apache, who for the nonce, bore the stamp 
of the most respectable of working men, replied eagerly: 

“The work’s done, M. Moche. Oh! I give you my word 
I’ve put in a desperate hard four hours over the job; I’ve 
never in all my life done such a day’s work for the masters. 
True,” added the pale-faced young loafer, “it was no 
ordinary job I had on. . . . Just you think . . .” 

But Moche interrupted him: 

“That’s all right, that’s all right, Paulet; no need to go 
gassing here about matters that concern only you and me. 
You shall tell me the whole story by-and-by if things have 
gone well. Come along and have a glass with me.” 

“And my barrow?” queried Paulet. 

“Bah! leave it on the sidewalk; no fear anybody’ll 
come and pinch it. And besides, if they did make off with 
it, I guess you’d never care; for you strike me as the 
very image of a workman out-of-work.” 

A good quarter of an hour later the two men were coming 
out of the dram-shop, looking at once well satisfied and 
mysterious. 

The barrow was still there. Paulet buckled to again and 
towed it slowly up the slope of the Rue de Crimee, while 
Pere Moche, keeping to the sidewalk, stumped along in a 
line with the working mason. 

The two confederates, who forty-eight hours earlier had 
come near slaughtering each other over the tragic murder 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


34 

of the bank messenger, presently reached the top of the 
incline and stopped a moment to take breath behind the 
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont at the opening of the Rue Bot- 
zaris. The place was admirably chosen for people wishing 
to talk without fear of eavesdroppers. The street was 
empty and in the park even not a soul could be seen afoot. 

Pere Moche, pointing to a bench set against the palisade 
surrounding a piece of waste ground—the very same where 
some months before a woman’s body had been found hacked 
to pieces—was saying to his companion: 

“Sit down there, my boy, we’ve got to talk.” 

Paulet was not sorry to rest a while, for his barrow was 
heavy; he gladly obeyed, and the two men faced each other. 

“Paulet,” began M. Moche, “I told you the day before 
yesterday we were going to make a mighty fine thing of 
it, unless you proved a funk.” 

The apache lifted his right hand as if to take an oath. 
“Never,” he asseverated, “I’ve never had cold feet, and 
you saw yourself how I downed the bank man with a crack 
on the noddle; he was dead and done for quicker than it 
takes to tell.” 

Pere Moche smiled, and resumed: 

“Very true, my lad, you know your job. But as you are 
so clever, d’you think you could run a man in trying the 
epileptic fake, eh?” 

“What’s that?” demanded Paulet, “what’s that mean?” 

“That means,” went on M. Moche, “you’ve got to upset 
your client, tie him up to rights, and pop him in a wheeler 
before he has the time to say ‘knife’.” 

“It’s nothing so very formidable,” remarked Paulet. 

But the old man proceeded. 

“That depends on the place where the thing’s done. 
Don’t you go and suppose I’m proposing to do the job in 
a far-away corner at night when there’s nobody by— 
that’d be elementary. My dear fellow, the man we’re to 
pack away—for you may be sure I’ve got an idea at the 
back of my head—we’re out to do his business in broad 
daylight, in the open street, in the middle of Paris!” 

“That’s a bit more difficult—but not impossible,” Paulet 
declared. 

Pere Moche nodded approvingly. 

“For sure, you’ve got the guts, my lad, and I begin to 


SHADY SCHEMES 


35 

think you’ll do finely for yourself yet. But just tell me 
how you’d set about it?” 

Paulet, who in his braggart way had declared the problem 
old Moche set him as simple as A B C, seemed a trifle non¬ 
plussed. He scratched his nose, fingered his chin and 
growled out some unintelligible remarks, then finally ad¬ 
mitted: 

“Well, to tell the whole truth, M. Moche, I have the best 
will in the world, but I shouldn’t know just how to tackle 
it.” 

Pere Moche had expected the avowal: “No matter for 
that, my lad. Now listen carefully to what I’m going to 
say, for the little scheme I’m talking about must be carried 
through this very afternoon. Now look here—we’re going 
to stage the fine old play of the epileptic seizure. Presently, 
after feeding time, we shall come along, nicely dressed up 
to look like honest bourgeois, into the high-life streets, say 
the grand boulevards or the Tuileries—I can’t tell yet ex¬ 
actly where. We must shadow the individual I shall point 
out to you. We’ll both walk behind him without any 
concealment, so that he’ll notice us and forget to pay atten¬ 
tion to two other crooks who’ll be stumping along before us. 
At a given moment I’ll give a signal, and one of the two 
in front will turn sharp round and come into collision 
with our man, then beg his pardon civilly for his blunder. 
That’s the time, Paulet, for you—you’ll be behind, you 
know—to play up. A neat trip, and you’ll roll your 
gentleman in the mud. Then, like t’other chap, you must 
pretend to beg pardon, and meantime, when the guy’s got 
his head down and his heels in the air along of the sudden 
tumble, you’ll shove a stopper in his mouth.” 

“A stopper, say you? but I don’t understand.” 

“You’re going to understand,” went on Pere Moche, 
and adding ocular demonstration to description, he drew 
from his pocket for his accomplice’s inspection a sort of 
small india-rubber ball the size of a walnut. Paulet exam¬ 
ined the contrivance with interest. 

The old man proceeded: “Soon as the client’s got this 
chestnut in his chops, he won’t be able to say bo! to a 
goose, for look’ee, Paulet, it’s made of elastic rubber you 
can swell out as you choose.” So saying, he pressed a 
spring, while Paulet stood gazing in wonder and admira- 


36 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

tion at the extraordinary implement of torture—nothing 
more nor less than an ordinary chokepear or elastic gag. 

M. Moche continued his explanations: “You can fancy, 
when he’s got that between his jaws, how the beggar will 
kick and dance like a cat on hot bricks; but he won’t be 
able to articulate one word, and to make the fake more 
lifelike still, we’ll take care to soap the rubber ball a bit 
beforehand. Coming in contact with the saliva, the soap 
will lather, and I bet you a pint of red our friend, what with 
his wild contortions and the froth all over his snout, will 
look for all the world like a man in a fit. The cleverest 
doctor would be deceived. It’ll only be left then to get 
him packed into a cab, and as it so happens, the cab we 
shall pop him into will belong to one of our pals . . . 
While I’m busy about him, you, Paulet must be telling 
the crowd helping us to get him in—you may be sure the 
crowd will help us—how grieved you are at the occurrence. 
You must cry in a big voice: ‘Oh! my poor dear friend 
. . . what a calamity . . . such a nice fellow, too . . . 
to think he’s always having these attacks . . . well, we’ll 
soon get him home now’—and so on and so forth. You’d 
never need worry, my boy; you may rest assured the 
cutest won’t suspect a thing! ... I told you before, and 
I say so again, I’ve a sort of notion in my head that’s 
getting clearer and clearer . . . We’re going to do great, 
great things, never you fear!” 


CHAPTER IV 


AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE 

Towards five o’clock that afternoon a busy-looking indi¬ 
vidual was crossing the Tuileries gardens at a rapid pace. 
Without a moment’s hestitation, like a man accustomed to 
follow the same route almost every day, he strode over the 
Pont Solferino, then turned to the left and hurried along 
the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was a man of thirty-five, 
on whose powerful features could be read the signs of mani¬ 
fold cares and anxieties, quick-eyed, alert, evidently a 
person of distinction, and one well known by sight to many 
Parisians. Not a few passers-by turned round to look 
after him, seeming to search their memories to find the 
name that belonged to the face they saw. Others again, 
better informed no doubt, gave a start of surprise, then 
bowed respectfully. 

The pedestrian paid scant heed to their salutations, 
pressing on deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, and not 
so much as casting a careless glance in her direction when 
he happened to meet or overtake a young, pretty and well 
dressed woman. Nevertheless, on arriving opposite the 
Ministry of Public Works, he halted in his rapid progress 
to shake cordially by the hand an old man, wearing a 
decoration at his buttonhole, who, despite the difference of 
age, saluted the younger man with a profound bow. 

“Good-day, Monsieur le Ministre . . .” began the old 
gentleman, for the individual so addressed was in fact no 
less a person than the Minister of Justice, Monsieur Desire 
Ferrand. 

After thanking the latter warmly for an official appoint¬ 
ment lately received through his instrumentality, the elder 
man, an Engineer-in-Chief, M. Vauquelin by name, ex¬ 
pressed his surprise at meeting the Minister moving about 
the streets alone. 


37 


38 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

But Desire Ferrand made light of his objections: 

“My dear sir, my temperament is too energetic, my 
nature too exuberant, to endure a purely sedentary life. 
I must be up and about and on the move for some hours 
every day. Very often I go to see friends who live at the 
farthest extremity of the Boulevard Raspail, and one of 
my greatest pleasures is to find my way there afoot when¬ 
ever my duties allow me the time . . . yes, on foot and 
quite alone,” added the Minister, “like any ordinary citizen.” 

“Alone, quite alone?” protested the other; “however, 
I take it that is only in a way of speaking, Monsieur le 
Ministre, for I feel very sure the Prefecture of Police keeps 
an eye on so exalted a functionary as yourself and that, 
according to custom, officers of the Criminal Investigation 
Department assure your personal safety.” 

“By no means,” protested the Minister, “I am afraid of 
nobody, and will have no one accompany me.” 

The old engineer made no reply, but on taking leave of 
Desire Ferrand, he shook his head sceptically, pointing to 
two men who appeared to be following the Minister, but 
keeping at a respectful distance behind. 

“And those two?” he queried. 

Presently, as the Minister was proceeding on his way, 
he took occasion to glance behind him and noticed that 
the two individuals pointed out were actually following 
the same road as himself and seemed to be dogging his 
steps. 

The two men were of totally different appearance. The 
one, dressed in a long frock coat and an old silk hat, was 
of a common, vulgar type. His companion was a young 
man wearing a light, well-cut jacket, breeches and a cloth 
cap. He looked like a cyclist and might have been twenty 
at the outside. 

Watching them more carefully, Desire Ferrand felt con¬ 
vinced they were deliberately shadowing him. This was 
intolerable, and a few yards short of the intersection of the 
Rue de Rennes, the Minister came to a sudden halt and 
challenged the pair: 

“What do you want, gentlemen,” he demanded, “why 
do you follow me?” 

“M. le Ministre,” replied the elder of the two, “we are 
Inspectors from the Investigation Department; we are 


AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE 


39 

instructed by the Prefect of Police to safeguard your 
person.” 

Desire Ferrand looked annoyed. “The Prefect,” he 
said emphatically, “is over officious; I have no fears, all 
I want is to be left alone in peace. Be so good as to leave 
off following me; I will be responsible for the order I now 
give you to your superiors.” The two bowed deferentially 
and made a show of turning back the way they had come. 

Meantime Desire Ferrand, cursing the Prefect’s pre¬ 
cautions, halted at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the 
traffic to slow down and grow less dense before crossing the 
Rue de Rennes. He was just opposite the exit from the 
North to South Underground as a numerous and compact 
crowd of passengers issued from the bowels of the earth. 
Taking advantage of the press, the two men whom the 
Minister of Justice had ordered to turn back, but who had 
only made a feint of doing so, approached their intended 
victim, whom they had not lost sight of. 

Paulet, rather staggered by the Minister’s rebuff, began 
questioning M. Moche, not without a note of anxiety in his 
voice: 

“I never thought,” he began, “we were going to meddle 
with a toff of this swell sort . . . such an important bloke 
as all this ... a Minister’s not just like everybody else.” 

“Silly boy,” replied the old fellow, “Ministers are made 
of flesh and blood like the rest of us, and I can even assure 
you . . .” 

Pere Moche broke off suddenly, his face losing the look 
of indifference it had worn hitherto. 

“Attention!” he muttered, “the play’s beginning!” 

A big man with huge hands and an evil face, standing a 
few yards away, had just signalled to M. Moche; this done, 
unintentionally it seemed, the fellow bumped violently 
against Desire Ferrand, who staggered, taken unawares as 
he was, and uttered a furious: “Look out, sir, look where 
you’re going, I say. . . .” 

But at the same instant Paulet, in accordance with the 
directions he had received, taking the Minister in the rear, 
violently tripped up his heels. What old Moche had fore¬ 
seen happened. The Minister pitched over backwards, 
striking his head on the pavement and lay there half stunned. 
Then Paulet, quick as lightning, dropped on his knees be- 


40 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


side the fallen man and dragging the jaws open with his 
sinewy hands, slipped the rubber ball into Desire’s mouth. 

Instantly the chokepear dilated to thrice its size, and 
try as he might, the unfortunate Minister could not ejacu¬ 
late one single word. 

A crowd quickly collected. Moche for his part had 
prudently slipped away to one side, while his eyes searched 
anxiously among the vehicles prowling round in search of 
fares for a certain conveyance whereof the driver was his 
confederate. Soon this particular cab hove in sight; indeed 
it had never been very far from the scene of action. It 
was a taxi that had been following the little group ever since 
they left the Pont Solferino. 

Paulet meanwhile was playing his part splendidly. With 
the help of the big fellow with the knotty hands who had 
butted into the Minister in the first instance, he was 
clearing a ring, pushing back the over curious. 

“I beseech you, ladies and gentlemen,” he was shouting, 
“go away; it’s a poor fellow, an invalid, who has just had 
an attack. Yes, he’s in a fit . . . he’s ill,” he kept repeat¬ 
ing, and everybody agreed the young man was perfectly 
right. 

The Minister in fact, utterly at sea as to what had be¬ 
fallen him, merely aware that he could not utter a word and 
that they would not let him get up, was writhing and 
wriggling like a man possessed. A frothy lather covered his 
cheeks and poured from between his lips. 

The spectators were of one mind, all repeating parrot- 
wise the same words: 

“It’s a man been taken ill, an epileptic just had an 
attack!” 

The taxi selected by old Moche drew up to the pavement. 
With the help of kind-hearted assistants, Paulet and his 
accomplice hoisted the Minister into the cab, still vainly 
resisting! 

The two brigands took their places inside with their 
victim; then, just as the vehicle got under weigh, old 
Moche with surprising agility sprang on the step and took 
his seat beside the chauffeur. 

The plot had succeeded—a triumph, indeed! 

But, after all, with what object had they kidnapped the 
Minister of Justice? What did they expect to make of it? 


AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE 


41 


In the Chamber at the Palais-Bourbon, excitement was 
at its height. There was a constant coming and going of 
Deputies, talking together eagerly without paying the 
smallest attention to the demand for silence from the 
President’s chair, whose bell rang out unceasingly. Pres¬ 
ently, however, quiet was restored when the President of 
the Council, the much respected M. Monnier, mounted the 
tribune to make the following announcement: 

“Gentlemen, I regretted a while ago to have to inform 
you that our honourable colleague, M. Desire Ferrand, 
Minister of Justice, had not returned to his house ... I 
have this moment received an extraordinary letter, so 
extraordinary in fact that I am tempted to believe it to 
be the work of a practical joker. Nevertheless, under 
present circumstances, I consider it my duty to make you 
acquainted with its contents.” 

“Read, read!” rose a unanimous cry—and in a voice 
trembling with emotion, M. Monnier read out: 

“—By my decree, Desire Ferrand has been held 
prisoner since yesterday. Again by my decree, he will 
be released to-day at 5 o’clock. 

“By seizing the Minister of Justice and holding him 
at my disposition, I have merely desired to afford an 
indication of my power to compel the House to negotiate 
with me; I want money, I must have a million francs; let 
the Government decide to give me this sum, and I will 
disappear. If not, the direst consequences must be faced; 

I shall begin with the Minister of Justice, the entire 
Government will be dealt with in turn.” 

The reading of this monstrous document roused in the 
auditors divers feelings of the most opposite nature. While 
some members laughed uproariously, persuaded it was 
simply a grotesque joke, others looked perturbed, asking 
themselves if the President of the Council had not lost his 
head. But a vivid curiosity was universal. There could 
be no doubt something prodigious, phenomenal was in¬ 
volved! Supposing the defiance to be facetious, still the 
disappearance of the Minister was alarming. 

What was this mysterious power that functioned thus 
in the dark, but whose existence could not be disputed? 
Instinctively, reason, logic, common sense urged one and all 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


42 

to seek to know the author of these atrocious pleasantries, 
and M. Monnier was exhorted to make known the name 
, signed at the foot of the letter. 

With a wave of the hand the President demanded silence, 
then he announced, in troubled tones, not knowing whether 
his words would provoke an outburst of mockery or of 
panic: 

“It is signed,” he said, “Fantomas!” 

The Chamber was in an uproar. The name was too 
familiar, too notorious, too terrifying, not to sow distrac¬ 
tion in the ranks of the people’s representatives. In truth 
all were pretty well agreed that only Fantomas could have 
had the audacity to imagine such a scheme could succeed. 

“Fantomas!” they declared, “yes, Fantomas is at the 
bottom of all this, that is certain, beyond dispute!” 

But numerous objections were raised against any such 
conclusion: “Fantomas, why yes, he exists, that cannot 
be denied; but the police unearthed the fellow, the elusive 
brigand was none other than the Criminal Investigation 
Officer, Inspector Juve! Now, Juve had been in gaol for 
the last six months! He was to be tried; meantime the 
prisoner was under safe watch and ward at the gaol of 
La Sante.” 

At the same time, Juve-Fantomas had accomplices no 
doubt, and the head of the gang being under lock and key, 
it was a justifiable supposition to allow that one of his 
subordinates had taken over the direction of his nefarious 
schemes. Already Deputies were busy suggesting names, 
and that of Jerome Fandor emerged conspicuous amongst 
the divers conjectures tentatively advanced by Members. 
All were unanimous in loudly and furiously proclaiming the 
enormity of the scandal. 

But suddenly a dead silence fell on the assembly. Five- 
o’clock had just struck. Now everyone remembered the 
terms of Fantomas’ letter, according to which the Minister 
of Justice was at five o’clock precisely to be at the Palais- 
Bourbon. Anxiously the Deputies waited. Some minutes 
passed amid tense excitement . . . Then, suddenly, like a 
clap of thunder, broke out a tornado of applause and 
heartfelt congratulation, in which all parties joined unani¬ 
mously. Issuing from the corridor at the back of the hall 
Desire Ferrand has appeared. 


AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE 


43 

The Minister’s powerful features wore a look of assumed 
indifference, but for all the man’s command of his feelings, 
it was plain he had passed through appalling experiences. 
His face was drawn and pale, and the hair above the tem¬ 
ples seemed to have whitened! 

A mighty rush surged towards the Ministerial bench, 
each more eager than the other to express his cordial 
sympathy and to hear what had happened to the un¬ 
fortunate Minister. The latter was explaining to those 
about him as much as he had been able to understand 
of the strange adventure, speaking hurriedly, in broken 
sentences. 

“The thing is inconceivable, insane, mad! ... An at¬ 
tack in broad daylight, in the centre of Paris, in the 
middle of a crowd of people . . . Resistance was useless. 
... I was forced into a motor cab! Once inside the 
vehicle, brigands gagged me, blindfolded me, bound me 
hand and foot. The taxi drove on and on a long, long 
time ... I had no notion where they were taking me. 
... I spent the night in a damp cellar, in cold and dark¬ 
ness, while a masked man, holding me all the time under 
threat of a revolver, tried to extort a promise of ransom 
from me. He talked about a million francs ... I was 
dumbfounded!” 

“Fantomas!” was the general cry, “it is Fantomas’ 
work!” 

The Minister went on: “This morning they brought me 
food, I was dying of hunger ... I took what they 
offered; then, about three o’clock, my gaoler of the pre¬ 
vious night, masked as before, returned after being away 
for some minutes. He blindfolded me again, pinioned me 
and once more led me to a waiting motor, which drove off 
and only stopped at last after a long time ... I was told 
to get out, and two men informed me I was now a free man, 
while each set to work to unloose my bonds ... A few 
minutes after, my hands being now free, I tore away the 
bandage that covered my eyes and discovered I was in a 
wood bordering a high road. The car which had conveyed 
me was vanishing in the distance, carrying my captors 
with it. I walked straight before me till I came to the 
nearest house to be found, where I learnt I was on the 
outskirts of the Bois de Viroflay. An hour ago I was 


44 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


there still . . . my first thought, gentlemen, was to come 
to the Palais-Bourbon . . 

The Deputies, after listening to this extraordinary narra¬ 
tive, looked at one another in amazement as they exchanged 
ideas in excited tones. Meantime M. Monnier had drawn 
his colleague on one side and was showing him the letter 
bearing Fantomas’ signature. 

“What is to be done?” asked the President of the 
Council in much perplexity, a fine politician no doubt, but 
lacking in decision in times of crisis. 

Desire Ferrand, in no way unmanned by the tragic ad¬ 
venture whereof he had been the hero, was boiling with 
rage and indignation. Springing to the tribune: 

“Gentlemen,” he thundered,, “the ludicrous outrage of 
which you have been informed affects not simply and 
solely a Member of the Cabinet, it affects the Government 
itself, the Chamber as a whole, it is a blow aimed at the 
entire Country, an insult you can never brook! more than 
ever Paris lies terror-stricken at the crimes of Fantomas 
and his accomplices. This is no time to mitigate stem 
measures—far from it, we must show a hand of iron! As 
Minister of Justice, I give you my guarantee that the most 
peremptory orders shall be issued for the wretches guilty 
of these acts of violence, the last of which was directed 
specially at myself, to be energetically pursued and then 
punished with the utmost rigour of the law. The danger 
is not one to make us draw back, it should inspirit us to 
go forward! The Government will ask your suffrages, 
pledging itself to respect the claims of Right, of Justice 
and of the Public Safety!” 

A thunder of acclamation greeted the Minister’s bold 
words, while from divers quarters came cries of: 

“The names! . . . the names of the malefactors! . . . 
Juve! . . . Fantomas! . . . The police—to work, the po¬ 
lice . . . Jerome Fandor! . . . down with the Press!. . * 

Again and again cries were repeated and through the 
ever swelling roar of this human flood, that tossed like a 
tempestuous sea, pierced again and again the names of 
Juve, Fantomas, and above all of Fandor: 

“Fandor is at large! . . . Fandor has disappeared! . . . 
arrest Fandor! . . . lock up Fandor! . . . 

Standing like a statue in the tribune, arms crossed on 


AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE 


45 


his breast, eyes aflame, as he looked down at his fellow- 
members, Desire Ferrand signalled his assent and approval. 
But his authority must win a sanction, his power be rein¬ 
forced, and as the Minister left the tribune, not without re¬ 
iterating his promise that the sternest and most peremptory 
orders should be given the whole police force for the 
arrest of the criminals, a member, leader of one of the most 
important parties, laid on the table of the House the draff 
of a motion; this was immediately read by the Clerk of 
the Chamber, as follows: 

“The Chamber, justly indignant, but confidently relying 
on the Government’s declaration of its resolve energetically 
to pursue the criminal or criminals guilty of the unspeakable 
outrage whereof the Minister of Justice has been the victim, 
hereby offers the latter its sincere and heartfelt sympathy, 
and proceeds to the order of the day.” 

The motion was received with unanimous shouts of 
approval. By show of hands the Chamber voted the order 
of the day, as proposed, and when, for custom’s sake, the 
President demanded if any were of the contrary way of 
thinking, not a hand was raised, not a protest was heard. 

“By 527 votes in a house of 527 members present, the 
order of the day is approved!” announced the President 
triumphantly, as he vacated the chair. 

“The first time in history,” declared the old hands of 
the Palais-Bourbon, “the Chamber has ever recorded a 
unanimous vote!” 

It was now seven o’clock in the evening, and as they 
emerged on the Quai d’Orsay, greeted with acclamation 
by the throng of idlers waiting outside, members jostled 
against newsboys crying special editions of the evening 
papers, wherein were already described in the minutest 
detail the extraordinary events that had just taken place. 


CHAPTER V 


DISAPPOINTED HOPES 

“So your birth certificate is an unknown quantity, eh? 
and there’s no means of knowing what your name properly 
is?” 

“What can that matter to you, Monsieur Moche?” 

“Oh! for me, it’s nothing to me. I don’t care a hang; 
you’re a tremendous cute chap, that’s all I want to know; 
your patent of nobility you can leave with your ‘uncle,’ 
if that’s where you’ve deposited it, eh, my lad?” 

“That’s where it is—or somewhere else, Monsieur 
Moche.” 

“Remember, prisons keep records, now, don’t they?” 

“Don’t talk about that, sir!” 

“Agreed, my boy! now look’ee, for the friends of the 
family, for Paulet, the wench Nini, and the rest of the pals, 
you shall be ‘Little Tremendous,’ that’s settled. Then, 
if clients come to see me, well, I’ll give you a title of cere¬ 
mony—d’you cotton to that?” 

“I’m agreeable.” 

“I shall call you ... let me see . . . I’ll call you my 
‘Chief of Staff.’ That’ll put a stopper on their gab.” 

“No doubt it will, Monsieur Moche.” 

It was in a dull, depressed, specious, fawning voice 
that Jerome Fandor replied to his new “master.” 

In the garret where the dreadful old fellow stored his 
archives, huge masses of dusty paper, cheek by jowl with 
all sorts of miscellaneous rubbish, worthless bric-a-brac, 
old worn-out furniture, clothes fit only for a hand-me-down 
shop, Fandor had passed a not too uncomfortable night. 

Accordingly he had risen in a cheerful frame of mind. 
A hasty wash at a trickle of cold water that escaped with 
a nerve-racking noise from a leaky tap on the landing 
outside his door, had quite made him his own man again. 
Whistling a tune he had rejoined M. Moche. 

46 


DISAPPOINTED HOPES 


47 

“Now, sir,” he had asked, “you have work for me to do, 
eh, in your place of business?” 

M. Moche, already ensconced in a leather armchair, 
from which tags of the horsehair stuffing stuck out in all 
directions, but which formed a permanent seat of state 
behind his desk, loaded with multitudinous papers, had 
nodded assent. 

“Work? Yes, my young friend, yes; at my place there’s 
always work to do, only as there’s not always cash, for 
times are hard, we must settle about conditions. I offer 
you board and lodging, and now and again a bit of money 
. . . does that suit your book?” 

Jerome Fandor would have thought himself in heaven, 
had not the dubious looks of the unpleasant old man driven 
all celestial ideas clean out of his head. 

“That’ll do me,” was as much as he had cared to 
say. 

Thereupon the worthy M. Moche had proceeded to put 
a number of leading questions. 

What could Fandor do? Write? Yes? . . . Good. 

That was capital. He could draw, too? then he could 
draw signatures? in fact, copy signatures, eh? copy them, 
you know, eh? Yes, again? Better and better . . . 

The old man seemed delighted. 

Fandor had judicially sized up his new employer by this 
time; yes, there was no doubt he could be of great service 
to him on occasions. 

Then M. Moche had asked the young man to tell him 
precisely who and what he was. But on that point, Fandor 
had proved reticent to the last degree. 

“I’ve got pals,” this was all he would say, “who have 
nicknamed me ‘Little Tremendous,’ because I’m pretty 
nimble with my maulies and ain’t afraid to use ’em.” 

The information was vague enough. But Moche was 
not the man to insist on any excessive precision of state¬ 
ment. He felt little doubt his new clerk must have had 
a somewhat chequered past. If it didn’t suit him to let 
out exactly who he was, well, that was his business . . . 

And that was why Moche, after informing Fandor that 
he would be where clients were concerned the “Chief of 
Staff” in his office, addressed the young man familiarly 
by the name he had chosen to give himself. 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


48 


“Look here, young Handy Man, I’m going to send you 
on an errand.” 

“Very good, M’sieu Moche.” 

“An errand to a pretty girl’s. . . 

“Better still, M’sieu Moche.” 

“But no nonsense, you know! it’s a serious matter, and 
you must be serious. No larks with the girl, she’s going 
to be my tenant.” 

“You’re a house owner then, M’sieu Moche?” 

“Yes, my boy, a house owner, but a poor, hard-up one 
at that; don’t you go and think I’m a millionaire . . . 
Anyhow, I’ve a bit of a place where the young lady in 
question has rented a flat.” 

“And that’s where I’m to go, M’sieu Moche?” 

“No, my ‘Little Tremendous,’ you’re to go to the Rue 
des Couronnes . . . d’you hear? the Rue des Couronnes 
while my house stands in the Rue de l’Evangile.” 

“Now I can’t quite follow you, M’sieu Moche.” 

“That’s because you talk too much, my lad! Shut 
your trap a bit, and I’ll explain.” 

“Shut it is, M’sieu Moche.” 

“Good! well, here’s how it is: The lady has hired my 
flat; only as I can’t say if she’ll fork out the tin regularly, 
I should like you to go and have a look what furniture 
she’s got, to know if it’s good to cover the quarter’s rent.” 

“Good, M’sieu Moche.” 

“You twig—do what I tell you without seeming to, eh?” 

“In that case, I’d want an excuse, eh?” 

“I never said I couldn’t provide one, did I? Look’ee, 
my son, search under that green bookcase and you’ll find 
some patterns of wall-papers . . .got ’em?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, take ’em with you, young sir! For the last six 
months I’ve found ’em useful for the same little game. 
You see, I send a pal, as it might be you, to call on the guy 
who wants to take my rooms. He comes under pretence 
of offering the new tenant a choice of wall-papers; as a 
matter of fact, I simply use him to inspect the furniture 
that must guarantee the rent. As you may suppose, I 
never do pay for the papering. Not much! The offer’s 
made—and there it ends!” 

Fandor showed no surprise. The business his strange 


DISAPPOINTED HOPES 


49 


employer was sending him on was of course perfectly 
straightforward and legitimate! Still keeping to his slangy 
way of speaking, Fandor merely asked: 

“And what’s the name, M’sieu Moche, your dicky-bird 
goes by? and what’s her exact address in the Rue des 
Couronnes?” 

M. Moche, while talking to his clerk, was busy changing 
his down-at-heel slippers for a pair of elastic-sided boots, 
obviously too small for him, the whitey-brown cracks in 
which he masked by smearing them with ink. He was 
bending down behind his desk and could not see the other’s 
face as he answered his last question: 

“The dicky-bird, as you call her, lives, to be exact, at 
142 bis Rue des Couronnes. As to her name, that’s pretty 
well-known, she’s the sister of a man who was murdered; 
you can’t help remembering about it; she’s called 
Mademoiselle Elisabeth Dollon—you’ll not forget?” 

In a shaking voice it needed an almost superhuman 
effort to steady, Jerome Fandor promised he would not 
forget the name! A thousand thoughts were whirling 
madly through his brain, his heart was still beating high 
with excitement, when M. Moche went on: 

“Well then, hook it, my boy; here’s three half-pence 
for going, to pay your Underground; it’s not far, you can 
walk back.” 

Yes, he could walk back quite well, Fandor agreed, 
hardly conscious of what he was saying. 

Ten minutes later he was on his way to the Rue des 
Couronnes. 

Elisabeth Dollon! He was going, he, Jerome Fandor, 
to see Elisabeth Dollon! As if the past had suddenly risen 
before his eyes as on the film of an imaginary cinemato¬ 
graph of dreams, Jerome Fandor lived again in pain and 
grief the torturing crises, the grim tragedies that name 
called back to memory, a woman’s name, the name of 
Elisabeth Dollon. No, never had he forgotten the pathetic 
heroine of those terrible days. 

Elisabeth Dollon, the unhappy sister of the painter, 
Jacques Dollon, Fantomas’ victim, deemed by some to be 
himself Fantomas till the day when Juve and Fandor 
rehabilitated his good name, was she not the only being 
Fandor cherished with a fond affection? Since the first 


50 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


day he had learnt to know her, to appreciate the girl’s 
proud and tender character, Jerome Fandor had loved her! 

It was for her, to do her honour, to rescue her from the 
most odious entanglements, that he had in those days 
devoted himself, body and soul, to the task of clearing up 
the mysterious affair of the Messenger of Death . Twenty 
times over, in the course of that police investigation, Fandor 
and Juve had risked their lives. Juve for his part was 
acting more for the sake of unmasking Fantomas than for 
any other reason, but for Fandor, he was spurred on by the 
interest he felt in Elisabeth Dollon. 

Once, for a moment, he had believed his dearest wishes 
would be fulfilled. Then, at that very instant of joyful 
satisfaction, an appalling catastrophe had destroyed his 
hopes. The prey he was tracking down escaped, and 
Fantomas, to crown his victory, in eluding the wiles of his 
two pursuers, Fandor and Juve, had the cruelty to add yet 
another triumph. He wrote to Elisabeth Dollon—already 
his victim—“Fandor is Charles Rambert; Charles Ram¬ 
bert is a criminal and a coward,” with the result that, 
terrified by this false and treacherous calumny, she avoided 
the young man, vanished from his life, swore she would 
never see him more! 

And now, now when he was poor, helpless, condemned 
to live in company of bandits, apaches, the dregs of society, 
Fate gave him this sublime recompense, sending him this 
day to see whom? whom but Elisabeth Dollon! 

“To see her, heavens! to see her! to tell her who I am, 
what I am, what I live for, to win a half-hour of sweet, 
calm converse with her, wherein to convince her of the 
truth, to explain to her Fantomas’ machinations, oh! it is 
too much happiness!” Jerome Fandor strove to regain 
his self-possession, to master his nerves, but his pace was 
headlong as he sped to the Rue des Couronnes, where he 
hoped to win at last an unfeigned declaration of renewed 
affection from Elisabeth Dollon. 

“I shall know very well,” he murmured to himself at 
intervals. “I shall know how to show her I love her truly. 
By the ardour of my words I shall gain her confidence, the 
confidence she must grant me, which I must have, that she 
may feel I speak the truth, that I am not what Fantomas 
has told her I was.” 


DISAPPOINTED HOPES 


5i 


Arrived at 142 bis Rue des Couronnes, Fandor found 
the house a crowded nest of working people’s flats. Along 
a narrow, fetid passage, its damp walls stained and scarred 
over with inscriptions indicating the names of the tenants 
and the different floors they occupied, Fandor penetrated 
to the concierge’s lodge. He tried to push open the door, 
but it would not yield. 

“So,” thought the young man, “the woman is not 
within.” He called: “Anyone there?” but his voice was 
drowned by a deafening noise proceeding from a tiny 
courtyard near by. 

Turning his steps in that direction, he discovered a 
woman busy with two sticks beating clouds of dust out of 
an unstitched mattress. 

“The concierge?” asked the visitor. 

The woman broke off her work to demand in a grumbling 
voice: 

“What do you want with her, eh?” 

“To inquire for a tenant’s rooms.” 

“What tenant?” 

“Mile. Dollon.” 

“Mile. Dollon? And what may you want with her?” 

Surprised at this discouraging reception, Fandor, who 
was anything but patience personified, merely declared: 

“That I propose to tell Mile. Dollon herself in good 
time.” 

But the virago had picked up her sticks again, prepara¬ 
tory to resuming her work. 

“To begin with,” she announced, “you’ll not say any¬ 
thing at all to her, because you’re not going up to see her.” 

“Not going up to see her! and pray, why?” 

“That’s the orders she’s given me—that’s why!” 

“Then you are the concierge?” 

“Yes, I am. What then?” 

Jerome Fandor realized he would inevitably be shown 
the door unless he could secure the good graces of this 
vixen who was so conscientious in the matter of obeying 
orders. 

“Madam,” he now addressed her in his most winning 
voice, forgetting how strange it sounded for an apache, 
such as he looked in his disreputable clothes, to be speaking 
in tones of perfect politeness. “Madam, you would 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


52 

oblige me very greatly by informing me why Mile. Dollon 
cannot receive me. I have not come to trouble her unduly. 
I am here to offer her a choice of wall-papers for the rooms 
she is moving into.” 

The young man had found an excellent way to conciliate 
the good woman. He had called her “Madam,” whereas 
in the qiiartier she was invariably addressed as “mother” 
so-and-so, by reason of her enormous bulk. 

“Well, my good sir,” replied the fat portress, suddenly 
disarmed, “I’ll tell you something; come along in to my 
lodge and I’ll have a peer first at your patterns, and if 
there’s any that look like suiting her book, I’ll go up and 
show her them, or you shall go up yourself. She and I 
have the same taste in wall-papers.” 

Be sure Fandor took care to express no doubts on the 
latter point, albeit it struck him as highly improbable that 
the fat concierge should share the same tastes as the artist, 
Elisabeth Dollon; he readily enough agreed: 

"“After you, madam,”—and, preceded by the fat woman 
trotting along in front of him, this being her own way of 
moving rapidly, Fandor advanced into the concierge’s 
lodge. 

“First of all,” began his hostess graciously, “so as our 
talk may go easier, Til tell you my name; it’s Mme. 
Doulenques. Now, you mustn’t bear malice because I was 
a bit rough with you just at first. The fact is the young 
lady is still upset after her adventure.” 

Boiling with impatience, Fandor wished Mme. Doulenques 
to the devil; the all-important thing for him was to see 
Elisabeth. Mighty little he cared to listen to the fat 
creature’s babble. But there, to hustle her was impossible. 
He questioned: 

“Her adventure? Mile. Elisabeth Dollon? . . .” 

“Why, yes; you haven’t heard? Ah! true, they didn’t 
put it in the papers. Well, just imagine, Mr. Paperer, the 
poor, gentle lamb, yesterday evening as she was coming 
home from her work, was attacked by apaches.” 

“Great heavens! not seriously hurt, I trust?” 

“No, not much the worse certainly, seeing as how she 
escaped in time; but it was touch and go; she got back 
here terribly upset, poor child! That’s why she won’t see 
anybody today.” 


DISAPPOINTED HOPES 53 

Fandor seized the opportunity to cut short the conver¬ 
sation. 

“I see; but she will see me, for sure, as I’ve come about 
decorating the rooms . . . what floor does she live on?” 

“Fifth floor, left . . . bell with a green bell-pull . . . 
But just wait till I tell you all about it. Just think, it 
was on the Boulevard de Belleville it all happened.” 

“Boulevard de Belleville! . . . yesterday evening?” 

“Yes, yesterday evening—” 

The young man had asked the question in such a strange 
voice that Mme. Doulenques felt her earlier doubts more 
than justified. 

“Now, whatever’s the matter?” she demanded, “One 
would think you’d been taken ill.” 

Indeed, Fandor had turned deadly pale as he listened 
to the woman’s story. The coincidence was so startling 
—Elisabeth Dollon, the very evening before, assailed by 
apaches on the Boulevard de Belleville; then, on the same 
boulevard, not far away no doubt, he, Fandor, defending 
an unknown woman against police officers . . . 

The concierge took up the tale again: 

“And the worst part of the story you haven’t heard yet. 
Mr. Paperer—she knows the villain who assaulted her! 
Seems it’s one Fandor, a low fellow who once had to do 
with her, and who actually . . . Why, what’s wrong 

with you now? . . . God bless my soul! stop him!” 

Spinning round on his heels, like a madman, Jerome 
Fandor had abruptly left fat Mme. Doulenques in the very 
middle of her narrative. 

And truly it was a mad thing the journalist had been 
guilty of in so acting. Commonly so careful and deliberate, 
so much master of his feelings, for this once he had failed 
to govern an overmastering impulse. So Elisabeth Dollon 
was the workgirl he had saved the night before from the 
pursuit of the street patrol! And Elisabeth believed that 
Jerome Fandor, whom she had had time to recognize, was 
one of her assailants! What cared he now for any further 
details Mme. Doulenques might have to give? 

Elisabeth lived on the fifth floor, and thither he rushed, 
panting, filled with a frantic eagerness to proclaim his 
innocence to the woman he loved, to clear up this new, this 
fatal misunderstanding. While the portress, in sheer terror 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


54 

of the man’s strange behaviour, in the very middle of a 
conversation bolting away like a thief to dash up to her 
tenant’s rooms, was screaming hoarse, half-stifled cries for 
help, Jerome Fandor sprang up the stairs four steps at a 
time. 

Yes, there on the fifth floor he saw to his left a door with 
a green bell-pull beside it. He rang a peal, so loud and 
peremptory he could hear someone on the other side of 
the door hurrying forward at a run. A voice, Elisabeth’s 
voice, challenged: 

“Who’s there? What’s wanted?” 

Fandor had a gleam of common sense, enough to make 
him disguise his voice: 

“Someone from M. Moche’s to see Mile. Elisabeth 
Dollon.” 

There was a sound of a key turning in the lock and the 
door fell ajar, while Jerome could faintly catch a confused 
clamour reaching him from the courtyard below. 

“You want to see me, sir?” and cautiously the occupant 
of the flat—doubtless the young woman had been resting 
on her bed and had hurriedly thrown a peignoir round her 
—opened the door a little wider. 

Alas! hardly had she cast eyes on the visitor before she 
turned livid and tried to pull the door to again, screaming: 
“Help! help! . . . you . . . you, Fantomas! . . . 

Fandor! . . . I am undone!” 

Instinctively throwing his weight against the door, 
Fandor endeavoured to prevent the girl from shutting him 
out. “For heaven’s sake,” he prayed her, “calm your¬ 
self!—yes, it is I . . .1 Fandor! . . . who loves you 

. . . . Listen to me, I beseech you!” 

But with a sudden, desperate effort, Elisabeth Dollon 
had dragged the door to again, not without giving vent to 
another cry of frantic terror: “Help! it is Fantomas . . . 

Fantomas!” 

All this had occupied but a moment, and already Fandor 
was regaining his composure. That Elisabeth, terribly 
upset by last night’s violence, in which she believed him to 
have been concerned, took him for Fantomas, was after 
all of small importance. He could easily convince her of 
the truth. What was more serious was the monstrous 
folly he had committed in bolting away in that uncere- 


DISAPPOINTED HOPES 


55 


monious fashion from Mme. Doulenques a moment before. 
Now on the stairs a prodigious uproar was swelling louder 
and louder, while the shrill voice of the concierge rose high 
above the clamour: 

“A scoundrelly brigand, I tell you! one of the same lot 
for sure who attacked the girl yesterday!” People were 
thronging upstairs, heavy footsteps sounded on the boards, 
a crowd of neighbours was hurrying up to the scene of 
action. 

Instinctively Fandor stepped back on the landing. For 
nearly six months he had been living the life of a fugitive; 
for all those months the unfortunate young man had known 
the gnawing anxieties of a never-ending flight from all 
whose interest it might be to discover his identity. Now, 
finding himself pursued, trapped on this stairway, he lost 
his head. Instead of quietly waiting till the concierge 
and her satellites came up to him and then explaining the 
misunderstanding, Fandor, realizing that Elisabeth would 
be long in recognizing her mistake, resolved to fly. Swiftly, 
noiselessly, nimbly, he mounted to the seventh story of 
the house, in the vague hope of finding a hiding-place. 

Fortune favoured him. The house was an enormous 
block of workmen’s dwellings, made up of several separate 
buildings, connected together and served by several different 
staircases. Fandor, following the corridor running between 
the rooms on the topmost floor, had the luck to come upon 
the landing of a second flight of stairs. To make up his 
mind, to dart to the top, to scamper down the stairway, 
never stopping to know what had become of his pursuers, 
to dash into the street and reach the line of the outer 
boulevards at a run, was the work of a moment. Bathed 
in sweat and panting for breath, he reached the Boulevard 
de Belleville—and knew he was safe. 

Safe, yes, but alas! atrociously disappointed. An hour 
ago he was on his way, in joyful anticipation, to visit 
Elisabeth Dollon, blessing the happy chance that was to 
bring him to the girl’s presence; now he had but caught a 
glimpse of her, had not so much as spoken with her; all 
he knew was that she believed him guilty of the most 
dreadful crimes, that she coupled his name with a name of 
horror, a name of blood, a name of panic terror, with the 
name of Fantomas! Exhausted, he sank on a bench. 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


56 

All day long, crushed by the hand of Fate that day by day 
accumulated ever-fresh calamities on his devoted head, 
he wandered miserably about the streets. 

At nightfall he regained some degree of self-possession. 

“I must think out a plan,” he told himself; “I know 
now where she lives, I know where she is going to live, by 
the Lord, I can surely contrive to clear my character in her 
eyes.” His aimless wanderings had led him to the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Pere-Lachaise, and he now set out slowly and 
sadly on his way back to the Rue Saint-Fargeau. 

“I will tell Moche,” he thought to himself, “that I 
waited for Elisabeth all day, and have not seen her . . . 

or else I will assure him her furniture is good enough . . . 

or, better still, as it’s nine o’clock at night, I will slip up to 
my garret, of which I have a key, without seeing my worthy 
master at all. To-morrow I shall be calmer, and can then 
see what’s best to be done.” 


CHAPTER VI 


PRISONER OF THE LANTERN 

For nearly two hours, Jerome Fandor had been back in 
his garret, the lumber-room M. Moche had put at his 
disposal, albeit without making any further provision for 
his accommodation beyond supplying a tiny lamp to give 
him a glimmer of light. But the journalist was not yet 
asleep. Kneeling on the floor, his lamp in front of him, 
he was reading and re-reading the evening paper, La 
Capitate, which he had bought with the sacrifice of one 
of the three sous presented to him that morning by his 
generous master. What he read was of the deepest interest 
and importance to Fandor. The young man was trembling 
in every limb, his face wore an expression of horror and 
consternation; at intervals he punctuated his perusal with 
half-stifled exclamations and frantic ejaculations of dismay: 

“What does it mean? ... the audacity of it!. . . 

the unspeakable effrontery! . . . Are we on the eve of 

a Reign of Terror? . . . After six months’ truce, are 

we to behold once more this figure of ill-omen rise threat¬ 
ening, terrifying, on the horizon? . . . And to think of it, 

my name too, on all men’s lips! . . . Confusion twice 

confounded! once again the man succeeds in thrusting on 
another the responsibility for his crimes! . . . a Minister 

kidnapped! . . . the Chamber in consternation! . . . 

The whole country attacked in the person of its highest 
representatives! . . .Ah! Fantomas is indeed a genius, 

the genius of audacity, the king of frightfulness, the monster 
that assails everything, that fears nothing, for whom nothing 
is sacred!” 

For the tenth time, Fandor re-read the article in La 
Capitate. On regaining the Rue Saint-Fargeau, worn out 
by the stress and strain of his visit to Elisabeth, he had 
heard the newsboys crying at the top of their voices the 
latest edition of La Capitate. People were fighting for 

57 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


58 

the paper, passers-by reading the news with looks of horror 
and feverish excitement. No sooner had Fandor cast his 
eyes on the copy he had secured than he started violently. 
In enormous letters he read the headlines: 

“Fantomas at work again .— A Minister carried off by 
brigands.—Fantomas demands a million francs to disappear. 
The Chamber votes defiance.” 

Now, back in his garret two hours ago, Fandor was 
reading, still incapable, in the mad whirl of his thoughts, 
of regaining anything like calmness, the amazing details 
of the extraordinary sitting of the Chamber, the Chamber 
wherein Fantomas had thrown defiance, a veritable ulti¬ 
matum to France, the sitting that had been held that same 
afternoon at the moment he was on his way to Mile. 
Dollon’s. 

That Fantomas should strike a sudden blow, he reflected, 
a blow so extraordinary as the one he has just delivered, is 
astounding, but it is not perhaps so crushing as I thought 
at first. In any case, what a fine argument it supplies in 
Juve’s defence. If Fantomas manifests his activity abroad, 
in public, why, Juve can no longer be confounded with him, 
seeing Juve is a prisoner in the Sante! 

Then, with ever increasing agitation, the journalist began 
to read the passage in the paper giving the shorthand report 
of the debate in the Chamber, which stated how his name, 
his, Jerome Fandor’s name, had been uttered aloud as 
probably masking that of one of Fantomas chief 
accomplices. 

“By the Lord!” soliloquized the young man, “it’s plain 
enough; everybody believes that Juve is Fantomas! Now 
Juve is in gaol, debarred from action; the inevitable con¬ 
clusion, therefore, is that one of his lieutenants, one of his 
accomplices, must be credited with the atrocity of to-day. 
As I am known to be Juve’s bosom friend, it is naturally 
on me the police fix their suspicions, it is against me the 
public launches its accusations. Yes, the game is up, my 
fate is sealed; no stone will be left unturned to hunt me 
down and arrest me.” 

Fandor’s reflections might have lasted longer yet perhaps, 
he might perhaps have thought out a plan of escape, for he 
felt convinced the bloodhounds of the Prefecture of Police 
would find little difficulty in tracking him down to Pere 


PRISONER OF THE LANTERN 


59 


Moche’s, if he had not of a sudden had the impression of 
footsteps, stealthy footsteps, at his side. Springing in¬ 
stantly to his feet, the young man challenged: “Who goes 
there?” but there was no answer, the garret was absolutely 
silent. 

“Yet surely I was not dreaming?” he muttered. Hold¬ 
ing his breath, motionless as a statue, the journalist waited 
with ears astrain. But no, he must have been mistaken; 
there was not a thing to attract his attention. 

“I’m getting nervous,” he muttered; “true, I’ve good 
reason to be just now.” 

He made a tour of inspection, but found nothing that 
seemed suspicious. This, done, he returned and knelt 
down again in front of La Capitate, where the paper lay 
open on the floor. He was on the point of resuming 
reading when he had the same unaccountable impression 
again. This time it w T as certain, definite, unmistakable. 
He had felt a current of air pass like a breath over his face. 
It was no hallucination, for the journal he was reading had 
half lifted from the ground, the unshaded flame of the 
lamp had flickered. Once more he started up, again he 
made the tour of his cockloft. 

“Nothing there!” he muttered, “nothing at all!” 

But as he was returning slowly, hesitatingly, to the middle 
of the room, with pursed lips and frowning brow, suddenly, 
with a sharp pop, his lamp went out, while whirling before 
a powerful draught, La Capitate fluttered across the floor. 
It was stupefying! Instinctively, in the pale moonlight, 
Fandor stepped across the garret, meaning to set his back 
against the wall, in case of further eventualities. But he 
had not taken three steps before a choking cry escaped him. 
Thrown with horrid violence, a lasso had wound itself 
about his throat! He was dragged to the ground, his 
limbs paralysed, half strangled, half dead! 

Then, with horror unspeakable, he looked and saw . . . 

The window of the attic, a dormer window, had been opened 
noiselessly. Clinging to the crossbar of the casement a 
dim shape was silhouetted against the starlit sky. At a 
glance Fandor recognized the sinister apparition. It was 
a man clad in black, close-fitting tights, the face hidden 
in a deep cowl, the shoulders wrapped in a great black 
cloak! A figure of horror, at once clearly defined and 


6o 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


indistinct, a shape that absorbed in the darkness, momen¬ 
tarily disappeared, only to reappear in darkling outline 
on the whiter background of the wall; it was the figure 
of Fantomas! 

In a single second Fandor had felt himself caught by 
the lasso, in one second he had been thrown to the ground, 
in one second he had noted the black, fantastic form of the 
bandit glide into the garret—and in that one second he 
recognized beyond possibility of doubt the Monarch of 
Crime, the Master of Terror! 

It was Fantomas! Fantomas, and no other! 

A grim apparition—this hooded man—this man who 
now held Fandor, his relentless pursuer, at his mercy. 
The journalist had fallen into the trap laid for him; he 
thought: “I am in Fantomas’ power! I am a lost man!” 

To move a limb was impossible, to resist a wild dream. 
Yet no sooner had he gathered a clear idea of the danger 
threatening him than, calm again and confident, he waited 
events. 

Swift and silent, Fantomas stepped over the crossbar 
of the window, sprang down into the room, and to Fandor’s 
side where he lay stretched helpless on the floor. In a 
turn of the hand he made fast the knots of his lasso, gagged 
the young man, then slackened the ligature that was almost 
strangling him, and this done, fell to taunting his victim 
with odious mockery. But what a strange voice, toneless, 
metallic, scarce human, it was that Fantomas adopted! 

‘‘Monsieur Fandor, good-day to you! Monsieur Jerome 
Fandor, Fantomas presents you his compliments.” 

Helpless, gagged, bound hand and foot, Fandor could 
made no reply whatsoever. Only the eyes were alive in 
the dead face, and in those eyes Jerome Fandor concen¬ 
trated all his power of resolution. With calm intensity 
he fixed his gaze on his enemy’s face, on the eyes that 
glittered luminous under the black folds of the impene¬ 
trable mask, staring back unflinching. 

“He can kill me,” thought the young man, “he shall 
never think he can frighten me!” 

But Fantomas had dropped his bantering tone, and it 
was in a serious voice he now spoke: 

“You were reading La Capitate, so you know the latest 
news? Interesting, is it not? . . . Unfortunately, Mon- 


PRISONER OF THE LANTERN 


61 


sieur Fandor, the fools have thought fit to lay to your 
account the claim formulated by me against Parliament. 
At this moment the police are looking for you, tracking 
you down, determined to arrest you. A pity, Fandor! 
no, I could never allow that; I like you too well ... In 
ten minutes officers will be entering this room to arrest you. 
But never fear, have no anxiety! If I am here, it is simply 
and solely to help you escape their reach; surely Fantomas 
owes this much to you, to protect you against your friends, 
the agents of the law!” 

A peal of laughter emphasized the bandit’s last words, 
and Fandor was still pondering what precisely these ex¬ 
pressions signified when Fantomas turned his attention to 
a task the object of which seemed quite inexplicable. He 
proceeded to drag out into the middle of the floor a tall 
stool, and depositing it there, climbed on the top, a 
manoeuvre which brought him on a level with an enormous 
Chinese lantern, one of those huge lanterns of wrought 
iron and coloured glass, of the kind to be seen in the streets 
of Pekin, and which are sometimes imported from the 
East to be suspended in the vestibules of houses. By 
what strange chances the thing had come to be hanging 
from the ceiling of old Moche’s garret, it would be hard to 
say. Anyway, Fantomas must long ago have noticed its 
being there. He leant over towards it, opened the door, 
and this done, descended from his perch. 

“There, Monsieur Fandor,” he announced, “inside 
there, you’ll be in the best boxes for seeing the play—I 
may say in the grated boxes, for I’m pretty confident nobody 
will see you. One can see from within outwards, but not 
the reverse way.” 

With a catlike dexterity, the man slipped off the long, 
black coat enveloping him in its folds, and without seeming 
to make any special effort, took up Fandor on his shoulders, 
mounted the stool once more, and deposited the young 
man in the interior of the lantern! 

“Now, Mr. Journalist, I refasten the door, by way of 
precaution, but I give you full leave to look out of the 
window to see what happens. You’ll see, not a doubt of 
it, the way Fantomas fights for his friends, and even for 
you, his enemy!” 

Yes, he would look, no fear of that—and Fandor, still 


62 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


bound and ensconced inside the Chinese lantern, into 
which Fantomas had forced him, his limbs cramped, his 
flesh bruised by the cords, half stifling, glued his face to the 
painted panes of his extraordinary prison. 

Jumping down again, Fantomas set to work with the 
very utmost rapidity. He pushed back the stool against 
the wall. He hauled up against the door a huge trunk 
stuffed full of papers to reinforce the crazy panels. From 
his pocket he extracted a screwdriver, and in a very few 
minutes had taken off the lock. Then, kneeling against 
the trunk, he produced a revolver, the nickel-plated barrel 
of which glittered in the moonlight, and passing the muzzle 
through the loophole where the lock had been tom away, 
waited events. 

Minute after minute passed in deadly silence. Presently, 
as often happens in the most tragic situations, Fandor 
in the midst of all his poignant anxieties, began to be 
tormented by yet another apprehension—a fantastic fear 
that the lantern in which Fantomas had imprisoned him 
was not strong enough to bear his weight. 

“I’m going to come tumbling down!” thought the 
journalist, “to come tumbling down directly, with a crash 
of broken glass and an appalling rattle. That’s something 
Fantomas has failed to foresee. Pray God, it might upset 
his plans!” 

But the lantern held firm, and by the time he had been 
a quarter of an hour shut up in his odd prison-cell, Fandor 
had ceased to give a thought to the possibility of taking a 
fall. His whole attention was again concentrated on 
Fantomas; but the brigand remained perfectly still and 
seemed to have forgotten the other’s very existence. On 
his knees, his revolver all the time pointed through the 
improvised loophole, he was evidently watching for the 
arrival of someone or something. 

And it was in a flash, without his having so much as 
given a start, or moved a muscle, or uttered an exclamation, 
that the sharp explosion of his weapon rang out, followed 
by the dull thud of a body dropping! 

Instantly the whole house resounded with cries of pain, 
shouts and screams and the din of tramping feet. “Go 
on! break in the door!” Fandor heard a voice yelling. 
Next moment two more shots tore the air, two other voices 


PRISONER OF THE LANTERN 


63 

bellowed in agony, two more wounded men sank heavily 
to the ground; then a mighty thrust shook the door and 
overset the trunk. 

With one bound, Fantomas was at the window, Fan¬ 
tomas had disappeared, yelling as he vanished: “Hurrah! 
three officers brought down! hurrah!” while into the garret, 
preceded by the blinding rays of electric torches, sprang a 
whole troop of men, shouting, swearing, revolvers in hand. 

A prisoner in his lantern, still gagged, still tied hand 
and foot, Fandor seemed the victim of an atrocious night¬ 
mare. Scarce had the men entered the room before Fandor 
realized the full horror of his situation, guessed the whole 
secret of the villainous design. The men were police offi¬ 
cers, they were shouting: “Jerome Fandor, hands up! or 
you are a dead man.” 

Then they began to search the garret, to turn everything 
upside down, to hunt about, to hunt for him! The young 
man felt a cold sweat bead his temples. What had been 
in Fantomas’ mind? He knew it only too well. The brigand 
had spared his life once more only to keep alive the man 
who he was planning should bear the whole weight of 
responsibility for his, Fantomas’ acts. If he had pinioned 
the journalist instead of killing him, it was because Fandor 
was now marked down by public odium as being Fantomas. 
He had hidden him in the lantern, he had taken post behind 
the door, he had three several times fired on the police and 
disappeared, all this only because he chose to make men 
think that Fandor—the man they were come to arrest— 
was really Fantomas, and that it was he, Fandor—not 
Fantomas—who had used his revolver to such deadly 
effect! 

“Let the lantern give way,” thought the prisoner, “and 
tumble me into the middle of the constables, and I’m 
done for! they will kill me—and they will be justified.” 

Meantime the empty garret was the scene of a frenzied 
search. The police, who had invaded the place like pillagers 
into a captured city, were now convinced that the man 
they sought for had escaped. “The scoundrel!” screamed 
one of them, who running to the window had discovered 
a rope hanging from it, the rope that doubtless had helped 
Fantomas to escape over the roofs, “the scoundrel!” 

Fandor could not see the man well, but he had a better 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


64 

view of another officer who answered him; it was Michel, 
Inspector Michel, who had once served under Juve’s orders! 
“My word,” the Inspector was saying, “but the villain 
had planned it all to rights. He was expecting us; while 
we were breaking in the door, he had plenty of time to get 
away. . . . Curse him! to think three of us have got 

themselves knocked out of time!” 

But at this point a constable who was still busy turning 
out a comer of the garret, interrupted his chief by a sharp 
exclamation: “Look, sir, just look here!”—“What is it?” 
—It was a small, shiny object—Fandor could see it quite 
plainly from his eyrie in the lantern—which the man held 
out for his chief’s inspection. The latter seemed prodi¬ 
giously surprised at sight of it: 

“God bless us! where did you find that?” 

“In the comer over there ... It means something, 
that does.” 

“Means something? ... It means everything!” 

The other men had gathered round the two: 

“What is it, sir?” 

“Look! an astonishing find! Leon has just picked up 
a button of the uniform the collectors of the Comptoir 
National wear.” 

While this was going on, a series of ominous cracks had 
seriously alarmed the unfortunate young man who was 
still hunched up on his uncomfortable perch. Meantime, 
however, the police officers had disconsolately taken their 
departure; they had arrived a dozen men, they returned 
to headquarters only nine. 

Hardly had the constables gone when, suddenly, in a 
moment, without further warning, the bottom of the Chinese 
lantern fell out. With a mighty crash Fandor tumbled out 
on to the floor. Luckily, the ceiling was low; the young 
man was not hurt, but he lay stunned on the ground, 
and for some seconds did not know where he was. Then, 
quickly, with his usual courage, he regained command of 
himself. 

“Good Lord!” he reflected, “I made a hideous noise 
in falling. Unless everybody is out of the house helping to 
remove the wounded men, they’ll come here with a rush and 
find me.” Then, straining his muscles almost to cracking 
point, Jerome Fandor, in spite of the intolerable pain these 


PRISONER OF THE LANTERN 65 

efforts caused him, struggled to unloose his bonds; at all 
costs he must regain his liberty. 

“Ah!” he muttered at last. “I think, down my 
legs ...” the rope that tied his ankles together had, 
in fact, yielded a little to his strenuous exertions. A few 
seconds more, and the rope came loose, he could shake off 
the coils altogether. He was able to get on his feet, he 
could get an arm free, unbind his fastenings altogether. 
But so cramped were his limbs, so numbed by long confine¬ 
ment, that the first step he tried to take, he staggered and 
had to sit down again. 

“If they come up and find me,” he told himself again, 
“I am done for!” 

But little by little the circulation was restored; he could 
stand on his feet, he could walk! 

Then, with the swiftness of decision that was character¬ 
istic of him, Jerome Fandor, without an instant’s hestitation, 
hurried to the window and leant out over the sill. 

“That’s it,” he muttered; “the police have forgotten 
to remove the rope, or more likely they have left it there 
as a piece of evidence in view of the further inquiries they 
mean to institute, no doubt. Good! Where Fantomas 
found a way, I shall know how to follow his lead. But 
quick! quick! there’s not a moment to lose.” 

No sooner said than done. Following Fantomas’ example 
he climbed over the sill, seized the rope and let himself 
slide down into the void below. The night had turned 
dark, and the moon was hidden. As the journalist de¬ 
scended, he could barely make out, some yards below him, 
the dim outline of the roof of a tall building, and beyond 
again an endless succession of other roofs, broken by a 
forest of chimneys rising like spectres into the night sky. 


CHAPTER VII 


FANTOMAS* ULTIMATUM 

“Long live the Minister of Justice! Bravo, Ferrand! 
bravo! bravo!” These and the like cordial acclamations 
were still echoing in Desire Ferrand’s ears as the Minister, 
in his elegant livery brougham, returned calmly and peace¬ 
ably to the Place Vendome about one o’clock in the morning, 
accompanied only by his Parliamentary Secretary, the 
Conseiller Navarret. Ferrand was on his way back from 
the grand amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, where he had 
presided over an associated meeting of the students in law. 

Desire Ferrand was a man of boundless ambition. A 
General Practitioner in the provinces, and in no way 
interested in the science he practised, he had found himself 
from earliest manhood attracted, fascinated by the allure¬ 
ments and difficulties of politics. His profession as a 
doctor, a profession he exercised with a calculated gener¬ 
osity, provided admirable opportunities for winning the 
suffrages of his fellow citizens. At thirty-four he had been 
elected Deputy. 

Eighteen months later, having attracted the favourable 
notice of the Chamber by his wise common sense, and the 
maturity of his views, he was invited by Monnier to join 
his Cabinet in the position of an Under Secretary of State; 
then, in course of time, as resignations or deaths opened 
the way, Ferrand secured the portfolio of the Minister of 
Justice, the highest functionary after the President of the 
Council! 

From that moment, his career was one series of triumphs. 
So far from throwing him back, the extraordinary adven¬ 
ture of a few days before had actually added to his popu¬ 
larity. Henceforth he felt persuaded he had only to steer 
his bark adroitly to arrive at the very highest honours the 
country could bestow. 

On reaching his rooms, the young Minister cast a weary, 
66 


FANTOMAS’ ULTIMATUM 


67 

worried look at the heap of documents, whose contents he 
must master. Smiling to himself: “All that stuff,” he 
said, “is marked ‘urgent,’ and for several days now a 
whole pile of these documents has been lying here that 
I’ve not even looked at. I wonder what really happens 
in a Ministry to matters that are not ‘urgent’?” 

Thereupon the Minister set feverishly to work at the 
task of sorting the voluminous correspondence heaped up 
in front of him. Two or three times his brow contracted, 
he made a gesture of exasperation: 

“Again!” he groaned, “again! it is really abominable!” 

From time to time, in fact, lurking among letters and 
papers, hidden under bundles of documents, Desire Ferrand 
kept coming upon a little memorandum, identical in every 
instance, but repeated in quite a number of copies. It was 
headed: The Million. Its text, which never varied, was 
a discreetly worded and anonymous reminder of the claim, 
rather say the order, formulated by the person calling 
himself Fantomas, who called upon the Chamber to pay 
the ransom fixed by himself. 

The fourth time this happened, the Minister banged 
his fist heavily on the table: “It is past endurance,” he 
vociferated; “if one of my attaches has ventured on this 
pleasantry, the first thing I do to-morrow will be to show 
my gentleman the door.” 

But it was getting very late; to snatch a few hours’ sleep 
was imperative. Within a few minutes, Ferrand had put 
out the light and gone to bed. With closed eyes, he was 
trying to get to sleep, when, just as the pleasant drowsiness 
that precedes slumber was creeping over him, the Minister 
sprang half up in bed, listening intently. 

He had heard footsteps. Then he leapt to the floor, con¬ 
vinced someone was coming into the room, though he 
knew he was alone, that he must be alone, in his private 
suite! Too much alone, perhaps, he thought, as he remem¬ 
bered that at night the Ministry was entirely deserted and 
that his man slept in a separate building a long way off. 
“Perhaps I have been unwise,” he reflected, but his re¬ 
flections were suddenly cut short. 

Just as Ferrand, alarmed by the noise he had heard, 
was making instinctively for the electric switch at the 
other end of the room, the light suddenly flashed out, 


68 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


dazzling his eyes, grown accustomed to the dark. Someone 
with the same intention as himself, but with greater quick¬ 
ness, had anticipated him. 

Desire Ferrand gave a cry of terror. A few yards away, 
a masked man stood confronting him, a grim, appalling 
figure. He was wrapped in a black cloak, and carried a 
cudgel in his hand. 

“The man of last week—my assailant!” ejaculated the 
Minister, turning pale. 

Yes, before him stood the redoubtable outlaw, who, a 
week before, had, with the help of mysterious confederates, 
laid hands on the Minister of Justice, had kept him secluded 
from his fellow men, and only restored him to liberty con¬ 
ditionally, delivering, in a letter addressed to the President 
of the Council, an ultimatum couched in threatening 
language. 

Desire Ferrand waved a hand ordering the intruder 
to leave the room, but the latter strode forward unheeding. 

“Desire Ferrand,” he proclaimed, “the hour is come to 
obey me, you must decide . . . you have five seconds.” 

The unhappy Minister recoiled, utterly confounded; 
unarmed, barefooted, in night attire, he felt himself at a 
manifest disadvantage in face of the scoundrel confronting 
him. 

But Desire Ferrand was no coward. Reckoning up his 
chances of escape, he put between himself and his antagonist 
the great desk littered with endless documents, and again 
repeated his order: 

“Go,” he reiterated, “go! ... I will have you 
arrested.” 

But the man in black broke into a sardonic laugh: 

“Fantomas does not take orders,” he asseverated, “it 
is for Fantomas to issue commands. For the last time, 
I repeat that I demand a million francs; give it me!” 

“But,” protested Ferrand, “where do you expect me 
to get the money from? It is odious, abominable, your 
effrontery is unparalleled! ” 

“Unparalleled is the word, sir; Fantomas has no equal 
—only despicable imitators.” 

The Minister resumed: 

“Neither Government nor Ministers will ever consent 
to obey you; I will never consent. Why, then,” he added 


FANTOMAS’ ULTIMATUM 


69 

gloomily, “we should have nothing left us but to retire 
discomfited, dishonoured, the laughing-stock of France!” 

Fantomas advanced a step or two nearer, and in insinuat¬ 
ing tones: 

“All said and done,” he hinted, “I understand your 
scruples, and I quite see it is difficult for you to agree, 
officially that is, under pain of risking your post. Well, 
so be it; I now propose a compromise. There is the 
Secret Service fund; my million will be charged on it with¬ 
out scandal or publicity; you will hand me over the sum 
I need; in return, I will disappear. Is it a bargain?” 

Desire Ferrand was boiling with rage and indignation: 

“Atrocious monster!” he screamed, “begone! How 
have I borne to hear out your odious proposals! Be sure, 
this very day the whole police force shall receive the most 
stringent orders to seize you! I do not know who you 
are, but no matter for that, I will punish you.” 

Fantomas folded his arms across his chest. Through 
his black mask his eyes flashed lightning at his unfortunate 
victim. 

“So it is war?” he asked—“war to the knife? war to 
the death? ... I bid you reflect ...” 

Ferrand made no reply. Seizing the first thing he 
caught sight of on his writing-table, he grasped a silver 
paper-knife in his hand, ready to sell his life dearly. 

Fantomas saw the Minister was incorruptible. “Be it 
death then!” he grinned his defiance. 

With a sudden, swift movement, the brigand whirled 
his cudgel round like a sling and hurled it full in the other’s 
face. But the Minister ducked his head, the weapon 
missed its aim and struck the wall with a dull thud. 

“Help!” yelled Ferrand, dashing for the window. But 
Fantomas barred the way, and a grim chase, pursuer and 
pursued, began in Desire Ferrand’s chamber. The Minister, 
with the energy of despair, fled before his assailant, throw¬ 
ing down obstacle after obstacle in his way, oversetting 
chairs, tables, every piece of furniture he could lay hands on. 

Thus, following and fleeing, the two men made the circuit 
of the room; but just as fast as the fugitive cast a stumbling- 
block in the other’s way, it was cleared away and tossed 
into a comer. 

So the mad race went on. The competitors were well 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


70 

matched; no doubt one was armed, he had a revolver, but 
equally without doubt, he dared not use it for fear of 
making a noise. The thickness of the carpet deadened the 
sound of the steps, the heavy curtains intercepted the 
Minister’s frantic appeals for help. 

But suddenly, the wretched man, running barefoot as he 
was, gave a cry of pain, followed by another and another. 
Next moment he staggered, fell to his knees, cried out again; 
then tried to rise, but could not struggle to his feet. Blood 
began to trickle from the soles of his feet, from his thighs, 
his wrists, the arm on which he had fallen. 

A last despairing groan was succeeded by utter silence, 
the tortured man had fainted. Fantomas, taking advan¬ 
tage of his adversary’s helplessness, had snatched up his 
cudgel again, and with a yell of triumph, dealt him a 
stunning blow on the head. Then, calmly walking up to his 
victim without a vestige of compunction, he lifted him 
bodily by the shoulders and knees and carried him to his 
bed, where he laid him on his back. 

Ferrand’s nightshirt gaped open over the chest. Fan¬ 
tomas passed the palm of his hand lightly over the damp 
skin to verify the exact position of the heart that was still 
beating in hurried jerks. Then, drawing from beneath his 
cloak a long, fine needle, the cowardly victor plunged it 
into his victim’s body below the left breast and pierced the 
heart. 

Holding a mirror to the lips, Fantomas made doubly 
sure that Desire Ferrand had ceased to breathe. Yes, he 
was dead, stone dead! 

Thereupon, walking quietly over to the switch, he plunged 
the room in darkness, and in the darkness vanished. 

It was now about three o’clock in the morning. The 
concierge at the door of the Ministry opening on the Rue 
Cambon was awakened from a sound sleep by someone 
tapping softly at his window. 

“Open, please!” came the usual request, in calm, 
deliberate accents. 

In a thick voice the porter, still half asleep, asked mechan¬ 
ically who it was asking to be let out. 

After a moment’s hesitation, the answer came: 

“An attache, special service in the Minister’s secretariat! 


FANTOMAS’ ULTIMATUM 71 

The concierge drew the cord, and a second or two later 
heard the door reclose. 

He had just opened, without a thought of suspicion, for 
the murderer of Desire Ferrand! As he dropped off to 
sleep again, the man merely grumbled to himself: 

“Pretty hours for working, I don’t think . . . One of 

them bloodsucker fellows again, I’ll be bound, who hang 
about Ministers. That chap who’s just gone, no doubt 
he’s been stopping on late to work so as he needn’t turn 
out so early to-morrow morning.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


A WIRELESS FROM MID-ATLANTIC 

“A nail . . . another nail! Monsieur Havard, where did 
you put the others?” 

“In the little bowl on the side-table,” replied the Chief 
of the Criminal Investigation Department from where he 
knelt on the carpet, while Professor Ardell, who was hold¬ 
ing between thumb and forefinger the nail he had just 
found, stood up again, rubbing his back with his free hand. 

“Extraordinary! most extraordinary!” muttered the 
learned professor, while M. Casamajols, who was also 
present, questioned the doctor anxiously: 

“Well, your diagnosis, Professor?” 

“Egad! Monsieur le Procureur, my diagnosis is perfectly 
plain and simple, and equally positive, M. Desire is dead, 
and he has been dead several hours now.” 

At seven o’clock that morning, the discovery of the dead 
body of the Minister of Justice lying lifeless on his bed 
had thrown the personnel of the Ministry into the wildest 
commotion. The domestics, well trained servants, had 
immediately advised the police, and M. Havard, hurrying 
with all speed to the Ministry of Justice, had passed on 
the intelligence to M. Casamajol’s private residence and 
sent an urgent summons to Professor Ardell. The three 
men, when they arrived almost simultaneously at the Place 
Vendome, had been forced to abandon any false hopes they 
might have entertained the instant they set eyes on the 
unfortunate man. Desire Ferrand was dead! For the 
tenth time the professor confirmed the fact to M. 
Casamajols, who could not believe his own eyes and ears. 

M. Havard, pale and haggard, intervened: 

“Dead!” he exclaimed, “you mean murdered, do you 
not, Professor?” 

“Why, yes, I do mean murdered; the fact is obvious. 
M. Desire Ferrand, awakened suddenly in the night, was 

72 


A WIRELESS FROM MID-ATLANTIC 73 

struck with an instrument which evidently stunned him 
without leaving any wound—perhaps one of those cudgels 
murderers sometimes use.” 

“I see what you mean,” broke in M. Havard, “a sand¬ 
bag, a sack, that is, filled with sand; it makes the most 
deadly weapon you can imagine when wielded like a sling.” 

The professor signified his agreement with the Chief’s 
version of the affair, and went on: 

“The victim, thus incapacitated, nothing easier than to 
pierce his heart with a needle; as a matter of fact, we 
have discovered one driven in under the left breast of the 
unfortunate man.” 

Noting the disordered state of the room, M. Casamajols 
observed: 

“Before the end there was evidently a struggle, a des¬ 
perate struggle,” and the professor agreed. 

But M. Havard now broke in again: 

“A struggle, however, that was suddenly interrupted 
when the Minister, who was barefooted, stopped all of a 
sudden and fell to the floor. Evidently the aggressor, in 
order to handle his man more easily, and taking advantage 
of a favourable opportunity, emptied a bagful of nails over 
the carpet, the nails we have been picking up all this time.” 

“You are quite right,” agreed the professor, “the little 
superficial punctures we noticed scarring the dead man’s 
limbs were no doubt caused by the nails scattered about 
the floor.” 

“The scoundrel! he provided for everything, it appears 
—left nothing to chance.” 

M. Havard was profoundly agitated and perplexed. 
Striding up and down the room like a caged lion, casting 
furtive glances at the Minister’s body, he pondered the 
tragic origins of the crime and strove to fathom the mystery 
of who the criminal was. 

At seven in the morning he had been awakened by the 
telephone ringing him up from the Ministry of Justice. 
Summoned in all haste to the Place Vendome, in a quarter 
of an hour he was at the scene of action, questioning the 
staff, examining the Minister’s bedroom, the adjoining 
apartments and the precincts generally of the mansion, 
but entirely, absolutely without result. 

Subsequently, however, when he came to search among 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


74 

the papers littering the Minister’s desk, he had been aston¬ 
ished, as had Ferrand himself, by the great number of 
holograph memoranda, all relating to Fantomas’ million 
francs and no doubt intentionally intermingled with the 
“urgent” correspondence. It was deliberately done, it was 
evidently the sign manual once more of the criminal, it 
was Fantomas, who, in ironic mood, anxious to rouse public 
opinion afresh, thus affirmed his presence and confirmed 
his impunity. 

Fantomas?—no, it could not be Fantomas! For six 
months past, M. Havard had cherished the absolute con¬ 
viction that the notorious criminal had been personated 
by his subordinate, Inspector Juve, of the Criminal Investi¬ 
gation Department, who under pretence of relentlessly 
tracking down the elusive ruffian, had carried out a whole 
series of thefts and other crimes under this sinister disguise. 
But Juve was in prison, there was no shadow of doubt 
about that. Then what was one to think? 

As time went on and the day lengthened, corridors and 
antechambers grew more and more crowded, hummed 
louder and louder with excited talk—magistrates having 
appointments to confer with the Chief, electors from 
Ferrand’s constituency come to see their member, officials 
and employes coming and going unceasingly; outside the 
very door of the death chamber eager voices were raised 
in discussion and dispute, regrets for the past mingled with 
hopes for the future. 

So far, however, the tidings of Desire Ferrand’s death 
had hardly spread beyond official, circles. The Elysee, 
the Ministries, were aware of the tragedy, the public knew 
little or nothing. But this was not to last long. Suddenly 
a swarm of newsboys, crying special editions, burst with 
strident shouts into the Place Vendome, debouching from 
the Rue de la Paix, deploying under the windows of the 
Ministry, then tearing off like a whirlwind towards the 
Tuileries, red and breathless, their papers selling like hot 
cakes at a premium. The special edition of La Capitate 
penetrated to the private apartments of the Ministry, 
and M. Havard, impatient to know in what terms the tragic 
story was told and to read the criticisms on the police with 
which the Press was evidently supplementing the narrative 
of the murder, secured a copy of the paper. Looking over 


A WIRELESS FROM MID-ATLANTIC 75 

his shoulder, M. Casamajols read in huge capitals, imme¬ 
diately below the name of the journal: 

“Assassination of the Minister of Justice.” 

Below this again, figured the cryptic headline: 

“Will he arrest Fantomas?” 

‘■That question, M. Havard,” slyly suggested M. Casa¬ 
majols, “is probably addressed to you.” The head of the 
Criminal Investigation Department made no reply, but 
with pursed lips, ran his eye rapidly over the detailed 
account of Ferrand’s death, though without learning any¬ 
thing he did not know already, and then went on to the 
article he believed, like M. Casamajols, to specially concern 
himself. But as he read on, M. Havard was lost in deeper 
and deeper wonderment. The article in question ran as 
follows: 

“From mid-Atlantic, from aboard the liner ‘La Lorraine,’ 
which sailed the day before yesterday from New York, 
bound for Havre, comes the information by wireless that 
the American detective, Tom Bob, a passenger on the vessel 
in question, strongly and justly moved by the daring acts 
of violence committed of late in Paris, has announced his 
intention to devote all his time and all his energy, from the 
first moment of his arrival in Europe, to the discovery and 
arrest of Fantomas.” 

The writer concluded the article with the words: “Let 
us wish Tom Bob every good luck, bid will he arrest 
Fantomas?” 

M. Havard and M. Casamajols looked at each other 
completely at a loss. 

“Do you suppose it is serious, this story?” asked the 
latter; “surely it must be a newspaper canard . . . very 

American, too American ... I don’t believe it, do you?” 

“Egad!” confessed M. Havard, yery much put out, 
“I am bound to allow that this Tom Bob exists, and 
even that he enjoys a certain reputation in the New York 
police force, but then, to advertise himself like that, really!” 

M. Casamajols suggested with a smile of irony: 

“Eh, Havard, suppose Tom Bob did run down and arrest 
Fantomas?” 

Lifting his hands to heaven, the Chief of the Investiga¬ 
tion Department turned his back on the Procureur General: 

“God Almighty!” he swore, “hadn’t we enough to worry 


76 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

us, enough to make us look ridiculous, without this Tom 
Bob shoving his finger in the pie. Upon my word, it’s 
the last straw, that! . . .” 

Havard stopped dead in the middle of his tirade; the 
door of the room had opened. 

“Do you mean me by that, Monsieur Havard?” de¬ 
manded the newcomer. 

M. Havard curbed a gesture of annoyance; decidedly 
he was in Fortune’s bad books that day. He drew back, 
and bowing low to the President of the Council—it was 
no other than M. Monnier himself who asked the question. 

“I do assure you, sir,” he replied respectfully, “I should 
never allow myself to think such a thing of you.” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE BLUE CHESTNUT 

“Get along then that’s no way to treat people 1 What’s 
he want with me, anyway, the nasty .fellow ?” 

Nini Guinon was furious; turning sharply round, she 
thus apostrophized an individual who had just signalized 
his presence by tickling her ribs more roughly than agree¬ 
ably. It was a Monday, and about two o’clock in the 
afternoon. Nini had just issued from the Poissonniere 
Gate; mounting the bank overhanging the moat of the for¬ 
tifications and turning to the left, she was making for 
Saint-Ouen. The young woman stared suspiciously at the 
man who was following her without a word, good, bad or 
indifferent, a smile of doubtful import on his face. 

Presently, reassured more or less by her examination of 
the stranger, Nini added: 

“I thought it was the ‘cops’.” 

The man shrugged his shoulders. “D’you think I belong 
to the police? do I look like it?” 

“No, you don’t,” Nini admitted; “but come, let’s have 
a peep at your phiz; what does this here masquerading 
mean, eh?” 

Obeying the young woman’s demand, the other turned 
his face towards her; the cheeks were muffled in a great 
yellow silk handkerchief. 

“That’s along of my dominoes,” he said; “I’ve had tooth¬ 
ache for the last three days.” 

“Well, what then?” pursued Nini. 

“Why, I’m in funds to-day, especially as how it’s Monday, 
and I’m going on the spree . . . suppose we make the 

bust together, eh?” 

Superciliously, Nini looked her interlocutor up and down. 

“Nothing doing to-day,” she told him, “I’ve got my 
man.” 

“Where are you going?” 


77 


78 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“You’re mighty curious, ain’t you? still, as the gentle¬ 
man wants to know, we’ve arranged to meet at the Blue 
Chestnut —that’s plain and simple enough, what?” 

“Why, yes,” the other agreed, “but as it happens, I’m 
going there, too.” 

“Then, march on in front,” ordered the girl, “and I’ll 
stick behind; I don’t care to look as if I were making up 
to chaps about these parts.” 

The man was all docility and obeyed instantly; walking 
a few steps ahead of the young harlot, but every now and 
then casting a furtive glance over his shoulder to make 
sure the girl was following on the same road as himself, he 
stumped off in the direction of the Blue Chestnut, seeming 
very well pleased with the beginning he had so far made. 
With a quick movement he swept the hair lower on his 
forehead and pulled out his handkerchief he had wrapped 
round his jaws under pretence of protecting his aching 
teeth against the cold. 

“So much to the good,” he thought to himself; “she’s 
never recognized me—and I have good hopes it’ll be the 
same with the others.” 

Who was this mysterious person who had made bold to 
squeeze Mile. Nini’s waist as she was peaceably leaving 
the city by the Porte de Poissonniere? It was no other in 
actual fact than Jerome Fandor! 

For some days past the young journalist had been lead¬ 
ing an absolutely appalling existence. Events had followed 
quick on each other’s heels, each more disconcerting, more 
overwhelming than the other. Chance and mischance had 
thrown him into adventures that grew more and more 
baffling, and seemed to him to leave no loophole for escape. 

First his meeting with Elisabeth Dollon, then his con¬ 
nection with old Moche—a tricky scamp he felt he could 
not trust—then after being unjustly accused by Elisabeth, 
he had been odiously victimized through Fantomas’ vile 
machinations, bringing him under the strongest suspicion 
of having caused the death of three policemen. And all 
this, just a few hours after Parliament had acclaimed him 
one of the authors of the violent attack on the Minister 
of Justice. 

Escaped by a miracle from the clutches of the police, the 
journalist had ever since the tragic night in M. Moche’s 


THE BLUE CHESTNUT 


79 

garret led an insufferable existence, hardly daring to go 
out at all, and then only at night in the most out-of-the- 
way districts, spending whole days hiding in slums, con¬ 
cealed in rag-pickers' hovels, in constant terror of being 
caught. And now, to put the coping-stone on his misery 
had come the assassination of Desire Ferrand, a mys¬ 
tery still unsolved, a crime without doubt the work of 
Fantomas, thought Fandor, but which no less surely would 
rouse the Criminal Investigation Department to renewed 
exertions, and render his continued evasion more than ever 
precarious. 

Yet Fandor was full of courage; he must not give in, 
it was all important he should remain at liberty, for the 
journalist was now firmly convinced that he was embarked 
on the right track, and that it would not be long now before 
he would unmask Fantomas’ accomplices, perhaps Fan¬ 
tomas himself into the bargain. Luck, good luck, had in 
fact brought him in touch with a crew of shady individuals, 
the instruments and intermediaries of old Moche’s nefarious 
schemes. Now these folks made no concealment amongst 
themselves of the fact that they were in the habit of re¬ 
ceiving orders anonymous but peremptory about the 
source of which, however, they did not trouble their heads; 
they served and were glad to serve as Fantomas’ lieutenants, 
they were in the pay of that notorious brigand. To trace 
back events to their source would be the surest way to 
discover the head that set all these arms in motion. 

“I’m going to the Blue Chestnut,” Nini Guinon had 
told him—and Fandor had boldly replied that at that very 
moment he, too, was on his way to spend the afternoon 
at that notorious resort of the Paris criminal world. In 
fact the discovery that Paulet’s mistress was bound for the 
Blue Chestnut —a suburban semi-rural resort just outside 
the fortifications, and a favourite rendezvous with crooks 
and demireps of all descriptions—to meet “her man” had 
given the journalist a lively glow of satisfaction. Days ago 
he had come to the resolution of shadowing the young 
street-walker, getting to know her comings and goings, 
and so through her getting into close touch with the band 
of her nefarious associates. 

And lo! in a moment his hopes were to be realised. 
Nini was going to the very spot where all these good, or 


8 o 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


rather bad, people would be gathered. Decidedly Fandor’s 
lucky star was in the ascendant, he was to enjoy the price¬ 
less advantage of meeting and making closer acquaintance 
with that questionable character, the mysterious apache 
Paulet, whom the journalist already suspected, not without 
good reason, perhaps, of having murdered the bank 
messenger. 

Moreover, he was feeling no small satisfaction at the 
success of his make-up, which had proved so admirable 
a disguise. Nini Guinon, of course, knew him quite well, 
she had seen him only a few days before, he was one of 
the gang and the reputed murderer of the police officers, 
if not perhaps of the Minister himself. His face and per¬ 
sonality could not have faded from the girl’s memory. Yet 
for five minutes he had been talking with her, and she had 
not recognized him! 

“All goes well,” the journalist congratulated himself, as 
he made his way into the garden of the Blue Chestnut. 
Yes, he was certainly in luck. The place that Monday 
afternoon was crowded with customers, a large number 
seated about the scattered tables, each of which with its 
load of wine-bottles formed the nucleus of a group of laugh¬ 
ing, chattering men and girls. 

Fandor took his seat unobtrusively at the foot of a 
table, endeavoring to pass unnoticed while he consumed 
a modest half-pint and listened to his neighbour’s conver¬ 
sation. He was just asking himself how he could best join 
in the talk himself when circumstances afforded him the 
opportunity. 

A wave of excitement swept the garden from end to end. 
A gay companion, a musician with an old guitar under his 
arm, had just appeared, a man Fandor knew of old. It 
was one Bougille, the vagabond Bougille, the man with the 
shaggy beard and merry-andrew face, Bougille the honest 
tramp, the incorrigible wanderer. The old fellow was well 
known and well loved at the Blue Chestnut , where on fete 
days he would often come to reap the reward in small 
change of his talents as a music-maker. 

“A dance, a dance! the Sonneusel” the -company de¬ 
manded with one voice, while all eyes turned in the direction 
of “The Beadle” and all hands pointed to “Big Ernestine.” 

Slowly, hands in pockets, with an affected air and a 


THE BLUE CHESTNUT 81 

look of satisfaction, which he tried to hide, the man 
addressed the crowd: 

“So, it’s us you want to get at . . . must have us 
dance it you again, eh? . . . well, well, off we go.” 

Cigarette stuck between his lips, cap cocked over one 
ear, the apache gripped Ernestine by the nape of the neck, 
whirled the girl round, and round again, to bring her facing 
him, then ordered her roughly: 

“Go ahead, wench; give it ’em, I say!” 

At this Bougille struck up the tune, and the couple began 
their evolutions. 

At first it was a slow waltz, with no precise rhythm, but 
dubious attitudes, languishing poses, embraces suggestive 
of passionate abandonment. Then, with a sudden brutality, 
the man hurled his partner away from him, caught her by 
the shoulders, threw her to the ground, then passing his 
arm under her supple waist, raised her to her feet, then 
lifted her up against his breast; then, three times in suc¬ 
cession, while “Big Ernestine” lay passive, “The Beadle,” 
striking an attitude half Hercules, half acrobat, whirled 
the woman about in his arms and beat her head on the 
earth. 

A thunder of applause broke out on every side. For 
sure there was not another pair to match “The Beadle” 
and “Big Ernestine” at dancing the Sonneuse. And what 
a dance it was, where the cavalier had to mimic the act 
of breaking his partner’s skull against the ground as apaches 
beat to death peaceable citizens against the curb of the 
sidewalk. 

It was fine, it was magnificent, the crowd was thrilled, 
electrified, and a young blackguard, “Beauty Boy” by 
nickname, caught by the wave of hot enthusiasm that 
stirred the passions of them all, seized the opportunity to 
give a bite at the nape of Nini’s neck, who cuffed him 
soundly for his pains. 

“Look where you’re going, you idiot!” roared a furious 
voice as “Beauty Boy” fell foul of a shabby individual 
in his flight to escape the offended Nini’s vengeance. It 
was no other than M. Moche. What could the old fellow 
be doing there? He was dirtier, shabbier, and more bent 
than ever; at sight of him, Fandor was filled with alarm, 
but at the same time it struck him that Moche’s presence 


82 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


might prove useful to him. Yes, undoubtedly, it was a 
piece of good luck to find the old man had come to the 
Blue Chestnut. Assuredly, under pretext of dancing and 
amusing themselves, the band must have gathered there 
to receive their secret instructions from the chief, who 
doubtless was no other than Fantomas. The moment 
Fandor set eyes on Pere Moche, he told himself: “Ha, 
ha! ’twon’t be long now before a something fresh turns 
up!” 

Meantime the journalist took good care not to show 
himself to the dubious individual in whose service he had 
been engaged for twenty-four hours. Pie had far from 
pleasant recollections of his stay at Moche’s, and it might 
well be the latter was equally out of conceit with him; 
quite possibly the old advocate believed it was he had 
killed the police officers, very possibly again, by way of 
ingratiating himself with the force, he might not hesitate 
to deliver up the supposed murderer into their clutches, 
should opportunity offer. 

At the same time the young man slipped surreptitiously 
behind Moche, while the latter was in talk with the “Beauty 
Boy.” He overheard all they said: 

“Lend me a yellow boy,” the young apache was asking 
his companion; “it’s not just for larks, I tell you, it’s 
for biz.” 

“Why, what are you up to, eh?” the other asked in 
his turn. 

“Beauty Boy” explained: “To-morrow’s Monday, ain’t 
it? Well, Tuesday’s the day the swell Trans-Atlantic 
reaches Havre with all the rich American travellers aboard; 
so I’m going to make my little collection, as usual—you 
know my game, eh, M. Moche?” 

“Gad! no, not over well,” declared the old scamp, doubt¬ 
less with the idea of extracting a more definite account of 
the other’s plans. 

“But it’s as plain as plain,” retorted the apache. “Day 
before the boat comes in, I hook it to Havre, dressed up 
to the nines; then I slip into the special train where the 
swagger dames are, then on the journey up I get to work; 
it’s mostly purses I do, now and then a ring, a bit of 
jewelry, or pocket-book. All that lot, when they step 
ashore, are upset, bewildered, sick, tired, they never care 


THE BLUE CHESTNUT 83 

to kick up a dust if they happen to find their pockets have 
been gone through.” 

Pere Moche nodded approvingly. 

“Not bad,” he laughed, “not bad! You’re a cute chap, 
my boy, for all your silly looks and dandified airs.” 

“Only,” pursued the apache, “one must anyway have 
one’s return ticket, and as it happens, I’m cleaned out just 
now.” 

“Whew!” muttered the old miser. 

But “Beauty Boy” returned to his charge: 

“Come now, don’t be a mean cuss, hand me over four 
bulls, won’t you?” 

At last Pere Moche so far yielded to the other’s eager 
importunities and forked out. But, like a good business 
man, he struck a bargain with the borrower that the latter, 
on his return, that is to say on the next day but one, 
should pay him back thirty francs. 

The cash once in his pocket, the apache vanished. 

Fandor had overheard it all, besides catching other scraps 
of conversation from one and another of the band, from 
which he gathered only one thing clearly, and that was 
that at bottom everyone of them was upset about the 
arrival of the redoubtable and mysterious Tom Bob, whose 
coming was announced with such a flourish of trumpets and 
noisy advertisement—a proceeding by-the-by he, Fandor, 
deemed highly injudicious. 

The journalist noted the “Beauty Boy’s” departure, and 
he could not help thinking that it would be greatly to 
his advantage, too, if only he could get to Havre. But 
alas! he had not a sou and could not borrow from Pere 
Moche, as the apache had done, inasmuch as he could not 
very well urge the same reasons to justify the loan. Still 
the idea tormented him that he micst go to Havre. It was 
all important for him to get to know Tom Bob at the 
earliest possible moment, so to say before everybody else. 
He was still cudgelling his brains to discover some way 
of realizing his project when suddenly he shuddered to 
hear a hoarse, angry voice growling in his ear: 

“Scoundrel, brigand, murderer, aren’t you ashamed to 
show your face? why don’t I have you run in on the spot? 
will you rid me of the sight of you, now, this instant, you 
hell-hound of calamity!” 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


84 


Fandor wheeled round in consternation, dumbfounded 
by this avalanche of abuse, this maelstrom of words. His 
eyes opened wide in amazement; it was old Moche who was 
addressing him in these furious terms—Moche, his face 
working with passion, unable to contain himself for anger. 

The old scoundrel went on with a hypocritical assumption 
of righteous indignation. 

“When I think how I befriended you, how I saved you 
in your extremity, and then you came and murdered people 
in my house and committed atrocious crimes, I don’t know, 
I really do not know, you villain, what hinders me . . 

Fandor looked his man calmly in the face. For one 
moment he had entertained the notion of seizing his ac¬ 
cuser by the throat and choking him, for instinctively his 
gorge rose at the outrageous charge brought against him. 
But he quickly realized that, to begin with, old Moche’s 
indignation was only pretence, and then, that the least 
display of violence on his part could only have conse¬ 
quences disastrous to his plans. The journalist had gath¬ 
ered the firm conviction in the course of the two hours he 
had spent among the dubious frequenters of the Blue Chest¬ 
nut that Pere Moche was possessed of a strange, but in¬ 
dubitable authority over these sinister personages. There 
was no question that, for some purpose or another, he was 
in the habit of aiding and abetting them, lending them 
money at need, or that he possessed an astuteness that made 
him master of the rest of his associates—and was perhaps 
the mysterious intermediary who transmitted to them the 
orders of the elusive autocrat Fantomas. 

Postponing all thought of reprisals for the present, Fandor 
obeyed the old ruffian’s orders and sneaked away; a few 
moments more and he quitted the Blue Chestnut without 
his departure being remarked by anyone whatsoever, not 
even by the landlord, who troubled himself very little 
about his customer going away, as he invariably observed 
the excellent custom of making everybody pay in advance. 

“That’s it, that must be the train!” Issuing from the 
Saint-Lazare terminus, an engine, heralded by the glare of 
its two head-lights, plunged beneath the dark arch of 
the Batignolles tunnel. Enveloped in a dense cloud of 
smoke, the locomotive rolled slowly on, with a rhythmical 


THE BLUE CHESTNUT 85 

roar and rattle, towing behind it a long line of passenger 
coaches. 

His feet in the thick mud, his back against the clammy 
stonework, Fandor stood motionless half way through the 
tunnel waiting till the train reached him. 

The journalist, on leaving the Blue Chestnut , left alone 
with his thoughts, and now firmly convinced he had at 
last come upon the gang among whom he must look to 
find not only the murderer of the bank collector, but like¬ 
wise the authors of the attack on the Minister of Justice, 
and to boot, in all likelihood, the assassin of Desire Ferrand, 
told himself it was above all things incumbent on him 
from this time on to dare any and every risk to secure 
a collaborator in his task. His mind was made up; it 
was Tom Bob must be his ally and fellow-worker. 

Who and what was this Tom Bob? he did not rightly 
know. Two or three times at most he had heard his friend 
Juve speak of the man. Juve, this much was certain, 
admired the American—albeit they were not personally 
known to one another—as a clever, capable officer, full of 
modern ideas. Fandor pictured Tom Bob as being in fact 
a sort of Juve of the New World—with this difference, 
that the one seemed as fond of self-advertisement and popu¬ 
lar applause as the other was an admirer of modesty and 
reticence. 

Summing up the situation Fandor told himself: 

“It is impossible, at the present moment, to show 
myself at the headquarters of the Criminal Department; 
in their stupid way they would simply arrest me without 
listening to my story, or even arrest me after they had 
heard it, if only by way of throwing a sop to public opinion. 
Juve himself is in gaol; the unfortunate man can do 
nothing to help me. Rather is it for me to save him, and 
to have the power I must be free. It may be Tom Bob 
will not be sorry to have me as a discreet and anonymous 
fellow-worker. Let us go find Tom Bob!” 

This decision taken, the question was to carry it into 
effect. Now Fandor, at eight o’clock in the evening, had 
still less money in his possession than at four o’clock of 
the afternoon. But the journalist, having noted the time 
of the last train that would take him to Havre before the 
arrival of the American packet, viz., the nine forty-five 


86 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


slow train, had thought to himself that, if it was im¬ 
possible for him to travel without a ticket, it was perhaps 
easy enough to jump the train as it went by, and so be 
carried to his destination—on condition, of course, of not 
attracting attention by entering a compartment, but instead 
riding unobtrusively on a step, or on some buffer or other, 
or else lying at full length on the roof of a carriage. 

He had explored the neighbourhood of the station and 
made out that by way of the Rue de Rome and utilizing 
a scaffolding erected by the workmen engaged in enlarging 
the tunnel, he could easily in the evening dusk climb down 
the scaffold poles on to the line. But on second thought 
Fandor had conceived a much simpler plan. At nine 
twenty for four sous he purchased a ticket for Batignolles 
and made his way on to the platform, then seizing his 
opportunity when nobody was looking, he stepped on to the 
permanent way and so, keeping along the confining walls, 
reached the entrance of the tunnel and waited there for 
the passing of the Havre train. 

He had set his watch by the station clock, and the train 
being due to start at forty-three minutes past the hour, 
he was at his post in the tunnel at half a minute before 
that time. He arched his back against the wall, and in 
spite of the blinding smoke, watched the line of vehicles 
as they moved slowly past him. 

“Engine, luggage van, another van, several third class 
coaches, a corridor carriage, a first, a second . . . now’s 
my time!” 

The young man sprang on the next coach that came 
opposite him, it was a risky job, a false step and he would 
be thrown on to the rails, under the wheels, but the 
journalist had audacity and fearlessness on his side, and 
dexterity into the bargain, and he landed safely. In a 
few seconds, by help of the hand-holds running along the 
sides and the mouldings of the woodwork, which luckily 
projected outwards, he succeeded in first hoisting himself 
between two carriages and then climbing on to the roof of 
one of them. He stretched himself fiat on his face and 
threw his arms round the projecting top of a lamp, then 
with legs wide to help maintain his equilibrium, he lay 
perfectly still. 

Hardly was he in position before the train quickened its 


THE BLUE CHESTNUT 


8 ? 

pace and emerged from the tunnel. The journalist breathed 
the purer air with infinite gusto. But his satisfaction was 
of short duration; the engine now began to emit showers 
of sparks and clouds of greasy, blinding smoke. He could 
only shut his eyes tight and wait in stoical patience. 

“Pooh!” the young fellow said to himself, “it’s merely a 
bad night to get through! I shall be a bit cold perhaps, 
and a bit dirty, but the great point is, I shall get there. 
Havre is not so far away as they make out; I think we 
must already be getting near the bridge of Asnieres, for the 
train, I see, is beginning to slow down, as they always do.” 

But next moment he let fly a big oath. The train, con¬ 
trary to all precedent, was taking a big curve, the rails 
were steeply inclined inwards and the carriages tilted over 
in the same direction, so that Fandor, who was not expecting 
it, very nearly slipped off his perch. He would infallibly 
have tumbled off if he had not made a wild clutch at the 
top of his lamp. The brakes were applied sharply and a 
jar ran from carriage to carriage; then the train stopped 
dead. 

Fandor opened his eyes and looked about him. He was 
in the middle of a vast shed; on either side he saw the roofs 
of carriages stretching away into infinity. For a moment 
he was at a loss what to think, then the truth burst upon 
him. 

“Damnation!” he cried, “was it worth my while to lay 
my plans so carefully, and make such a monstrous mistake 
after all!” 

Instead of taking the train for Havre, he had got on to 
a line of empty coaches which a yard-engine was simply 
hauling out to its siding for the night. 

Even as he realized the fact, in the distance, full steam 
ahead and brilliantly lighted up, he saw a main line train 
go by—the Havre train without a doubt! 


CHAPTER X 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 

The Lorraine had just entered the port of Havre after an 
excellent passage across the Atlantic. As usual, her pas¬ 
senger list was a full one, and bore many names well known 
in the worlds of high finance and fashion. The decks 
were crowded with pretty women in brilliant toilettes and 
clean-shaven, keen-faced men in check cloth caps, a typi¬ 
cally American company, not to mention a minority of 
other nationalities—Frenchmen, Englishmen, heavily built 
Germans, with a sprinkling of Spaniards and Italians and 
even a half-dozen bronzed Asiatics, a cosmopolitan as¬ 
semblage. 

The great ship lay alongside the huge customs shed, at 
the further side of which was drawn up the special boat- 
train destined to convey the liner’s first class passengers to 
Paris, and only waiting the latter’s release from the for¬ 
malities of the douane. Now all was ready, and the heavy 
train got into motion, threaded its way at a snail’s pace 
through the vast labyrinth of docks and warehouses, made 
a brief halt at the Havre railway station to pick up a few 
travellers having special permission to avail themselves of 
this express service, then little by little gathering speed, 
began the headlong race that was only to end 300 kilometres 
from the start at the Gare Saint-Lazare in the very heart 
of the capital. 

Very soon dejeuner was served in the dining coach. 

“How pretty the country is,” said Mrs. Silas K. Bigelow, 
enthusiastically; she was a young and charming American, 
who sat with eyes never leaving the window, gazing with 
admiring curiosity at the fertile plains of Normandy whirl¬ 
ing past. Her vis-a-vis at her table in the dining car, Mr. 
Van Buren, one of the most famous of New York’s multi¬ 
millionaires, less enamoured of landscape than his poetical 
fellow-countrywoman, insisted on his companion devoting 
a less perfunctory attention to the meal. 

88 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


89 

The wine steward approached: “What wine will the 
ladies and gentlemen drink—Saint Emilion, Pommard, 
extra dry?” 

Mrs. Bigelow’s neighbour, a superb creature, with hair 
as black as ink and eyes of an opalescent green, shook her 
head in reply to the enquiring glance of her companion, a 
young Englishman, with smooth cheeks and close-cropped 
hair. 

“No, my dear Ascott,” she declared, “now we are ashore 
again, I want no more of those heady beverages. All very 
well at sea, but not good for my health now. Order me 
some mineral water, will you?” 

Ascott looked round in search of the wine steward, but 
the man was already at the opposite end of the car, booking 
the orders of the other tables. 

“Sorry, Princess,” the young Englishman excused him¬ 
self; “directly the man comes back, I will give him your 
order. Is there any particular kind you prefer?” 

But the Princess Sonia Danidoff answered the question 
only with a careless wave of the hand and a brief: 

“Oh! I don’t know; I hate having to choose.” 

Then turning with a gracious smile towards another 
traveller seated at a neighbouring table, the princess 
thanked him for the slight service he had rendered her by 
passing her the menu card with a very polite bow. 

Meantime Mr. Bigelow, seated not far from his wife, 
uttered a startled exclamation. He had just unfolded a 
French journal and rapidly cast his eye over it; indeed a 
number of the passengers in the restaurant car were 
similarly engaged, eagerly scanning the news columns of 
the morning papers. 

No doubt during the voyage the news sheet that ap¬ 
peared on board every morning had contained sundry 
important items of information supplied by wireless, but 
detailed particulars were lacking, and for this reason it was 
a boon to the newly-arrived travellers to be put in pos¬ 
session of numberless piquant details of international events, 
and especially of the activities of the fashionable world of 
Paris, in which they were more particularly interested. 

During the six days’ sea voyage, the world had not stood 
still; the usual incidents, the usual joys and sorrows, the 
usual anecdotes formed the staple of the record—and the 


9 o 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


usual crimes. But here was something of direst import; 
these tourists who for nearly a week had been more or 
less isolated on the high seas were startled to learn that 
on arrival they were to find Paris a prey to the most acute 
alarm, and that since leaving land a series of tragedies had 
occurred, the most mysterious and the most terrifying ever 
known. The newspapers of every shade of politics, of every 
sort and kind, were full of the dramatic incidents that so 
excited public opinion, and above all abounded in the latest 
particulars of the daring and dastardly assassination of the 
Minister of Justice that had happened a few days before. 

But there was one item that more than any other roused 
the keenest curiosity among the occupants of the restaurant 
car. This was the announcement of the expected arrival 
in France of the American, Tom Bob, and the statement 
that the detective in question was on board the SS. Lorraine , 
due to reach Havre on the very morning of issue. This was 
naturally a highly exciting piece of news to the passengers 
who had travelled with him, many of whom, moreover, 
knew of the reputation the man enjoyed at police head¬ 
quarters in New York. 

“Is it possible?” laughed the Princess Sonia Danidoff, 
to whom her cavalier had just read the paragraph, “is it 
possible we have had Tom Bob with us on board?” 

“But why not, Princess,” replied the multi-millionaire. 
“Surely Tom Bob might be aboard without the world being 
turned upside down or the Lorraine dressing ship in his 
honour.” 

“But is it not strange,” Mrs. Bigelow asked the question, 
“that he never made himself known to us?” 

“A detective,” observed Ascott, “is hardly likely to have 
his coming announced by ambassadors, and as a rule prefers 
his presence to be unremarked.” 

The same traveller who a minute or two before had 
courteously passed the list enumerating all the various sorts 
of mineral waters to the Princess Danidoff now joined in 
with a word of approval of Ascott’s remark: 

“The gentleman,” he declared, “is perfectly right, and I 
entirely agree with him in thinking that a detective, were 
it Tom Bob himself, is bound under certain circumstances 
to keep the secret of his identity. In other cases, however, 
it is best he should make himself known, and that explains 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


9i 


why Tom Bob, without therefore laying himself open to a 
charge of inconsistency, has chosen on the one hand to 
preserve an incognito on board ship while on the other in¬ 
forming the French press by wireless of his speedy arrival 
in Paris.” 

All eyes were turned on the speaker, who was evidently 
one of the Lorraine’s passengers. He was a man of about 
forty, whose brick-red complexion was the more noticeable 
as his hair was deeply tinged with silver. Like many Ameri¬ 
cans, he carried at his buttonhole a miniature U.S.A. flag 
in enamelled porcelain; two heavy gold rings adorned his 
finger, and he wore coat and trousers of light grey cloth. 
The inspection continued for some seconds after its object 
had quietly resumed his meal, for none of the first class 
passengers could recollect having ever seen this particular 
individual during the passage over. 

At this moment a Frenchman who sat facing him, quite a 
young man, who had joined the train at Havre, addressed 
the stranger: 

“Excuse me, sir, but they say Tom Bob proposes to take 
measures in this country to arrest Fantomas, that elusive 
brigand who always baffles the best efforts of the police 
... it is a bold venture!” 

The man of the silvery locks looked up at the youth, then 
fixing his eyes on the other’s face, answered calmly after 
a pause: 

“It is very American, sir; what need to say more?” 

“Well said, sir,” exclaimed a stout, ruddy-faced man, 
known to all on the ship as being Hamilton Gould, an enor¬ 
mously wealthy Californian, who had been round the world 
three or four times already, “in America we are all like that.” 

Mr. Van Buren smiled, but said nothing, while Mrs. 
Bigelow, entering into the spirit of the conversation, sug¬ 
gested : 

“Perhaps Tom Bob was just one of the bar tenders or 
maybe that old lady with the white wig who by her own 
account travels for a Paris dressmaker.” 

The Princess Danidoff added yet another guess with a 
glance of irony at the last speaker: 

“Or the Captain? . . . why, not, while you are about it, 
dear Mrs. Bigelow?” 

Presently cigars were lighted and the majority of the 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


92 

ladies left the restaurant car to return to their several com¬ 
partments. Ascott, Van Buren and Hamilton Gould, how¬ 
ever, had followed Mrs. Bigelow and the Princess Danidoff 
as they left the carriage, while behind them the man with 
the silvery hair had risen from his seat. The conversation 
was resumed in the corridor. A window stood open, and 
Mr. Van Buren begged permission to smoke a cigarette. 
Then observing that Sonia Danidoff was about to do the 
like: 

“May I give you a light?” he asked the princess, who 
thanked him for the offer. 

“Egad!” exclaimed the millionaire next moment, “what 
a nuisance! I thought I had my lighter in my vest pocket, 
and now I can’t find it; I must have left it in my portman¬ 
teau.” 

A bantering voice was heard behind him: 

“Or rather, haven’t you perhaps had it stolen, sir?” 

Van Buren wheeled round; it was the man with the 
silvery hair who had spoken. Without appearing to pay 
any heed to the astonishment he provoked, the man went 
on: 

“You must know that these trains de luxe, such as the 
one we are in, are often worked by pickpockets, and that 
these gentry find a malicious satisfaction in robbing pas¬ 
sengers even of articles of little value, simply with the 
object of keeping their hand in.” 

Van Buren did not know what to say, Mrs. Bigelow 
smiled nervously, while not without a touch of anxiety, the 
Princess Sonia Danidoff, whose lips were trembling a little, 
murmured with a forced laugh: 

“Pooh! we ought not to be afraid , surely, seeing the 
renowned Tom Bob is with us . . . but is he really with 
us?” 

“Why, yesl” cried Hamilton Gould. “I’m ready to 
wager he is.” 

“Will you show us the man?” demanded Mrs. Bigelow. 

“Perhaps I may, who knows?” 

Then all burst out laughing; Ascott had just drawn 
their attention to the smoking compartment at the far end of 
the car, where a passenger lay fast asleep, adding the 
suggestion: 

“Perhaps it’s that gentleman.” 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


93 

First the men, then the ladies, all equally amused and 
curious, stole one by one to peep in at the traveller who 
was still fast asleep, little dreaming of the interest he 
aroused. 

But the man of the silvery hair again drew attention to 
himself by his criticism of Ascott’s identification. 

“It shows a want of perspicacity, sir,” he declared, “to 
take the gentleman sleeping there for Tom Bob. In the 
first place a detective does not sleep; besides which, one 
has only to look at your man in the smoking carriage to 
be quite sure, first, that he is a Frenchman; that is plain 
from the cut of his clothes, and second, that he is an officer, 
in fact I should say an officer actually serving with the 
colours.” 

Much impressed, Sonia Danidoff drew nearer to the 
speaker: “And what tells you that, sir?” 

The man bowed gravely. 

“Nothing simpler, madam! To begin with, look at 
that bundle of sticks and umbrellas in the net above his 
head; amongst them don’t you see something long in a 
green baize case?—a sword, an officer’s sword, obviously! 
Then notice his temples; the hair lies flat to the head all 
round a circular line, while it sticks out like other people’s 
just below at the level of the top of the ear—that means 
our gentleman usually wears a kepi. Then, consider, apart 
from the moustache, the only hair he wears on his face, the 
bronze of the skin, stopping short at the neck—there you 
have a man used to living in the open air. I believe I am 
pretty accurate in my diagnosis . . . what do you think 
of it?” 

Hamilton Gould’s big hand fell familiarly on the silver- 
haired individual’s shoulder. 

“I think, sir,” he declared emphatically, “that to follow 
up a train of reasoning like that, to draw a conclusion 
with such clearness and precision, there’s only one man in 
all the world, above all only one American—and I think 
you are that man, Tom Bob in person!” 

The man addressed smiled as he looked with sparkling 
eyes in the face of the genial globe-trotter. 

“You are right,” he said simply, “I am Tom Bob.” 

It was the signal for an outburst of enthusiasm and curi¬ 
osity that soon spread to every passenger in the carriage. 


94 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


All crowded round the famous detective, each more eager 
than the other to speak to the great man. 

“I beg and pray,” Mrs. Bigelow urged her husband, 
“you will introduce me; how delightful, how amusing to 
know a detective!” 

But already Tom Bob, like the perfect man of the world 
he was, was paying his respects to the Princess Danidoff. 

“We possess some good friends in common, Princess,” 
he was saying, “the Count and Countess Karenisky; I knew 
them well when I was staying at St. Petersburg; in fact, I 
had an opportunity of doing them a small service.” 

“At the time of the Nihilists, was it not?” interrupted 
the Princess Sonia. 

“Yes, indeed, during that critical period . . 

But the princess shuddered at the mournful recollections 
the words recalled, and stopped any further reference to 
the past: “Do not, I beg you, sir, revive these dreadful 
memories!” 

However, Hamilton Gould broke in at this point, very 
opportunely changing the conversation. 

“Then,” he asked, “as you know us all, you were actu¬ 
ally on board the Lorraine?” 

“Why, certainly, sir,” replied Tom Bob. “Do you want 
proofs? You occupied the state room No. 127, the Princess 
Sonia Danidoff had a cabin port side; we enjoyed a first- 
rate passage, though on the evening of the second day, a 
bit of a gale blew up about six o’clock, and we feared 
bad weather for next day. Is that correct?” 

“Absolutely correct!” asseverated Mr. Van Buren. 

After that the conversation turned on a more enticing 
and more serious subject. Tom Bob had been announced 
by the Parisian Press as the declared antagonist of Fan¬ 
tomas. It was natural to question him as to the attitude 
he proposed to adopt towards the notorious brigand. But 
the American detective was not to be drawn, entrenching 
himself behind what he called “professional secrecy.” 

Mrs. Bigelow gave a groan of terror. 

“Great heavens!” she cried, “supposing Fantomas were 
in this train and knew that you were here, too, Mr. Tom 
Bob, and chose to blow us all up, it would be appalling!” 

“It would be a very natural thing for Fantomas to do, 
madam,” the detective replied, “but for certain reasons 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


95 

I am well assured we have nothing to fear on that head.” 

The young Frenchman, who some while before had ac¬ 
costed Tom Bob, was just returning from the breakfast 
car, a fat cigar in his mouth, eyes shining, and hat cocked 
rakishly over one ear. 

“First place,” he began in a quizzical voice, “Mister 
detective, you have an easy job before you, for you must 
know Fantomas is in gaol.” 

“Why, yes, that’s true enough,” admitted Mr. Van Buren. 

“Still, as Mr. Tom Bob is so clever, it’s to be hoped 
he’ll meet him all the same and finish by arresting his 
man.” 

. . . “Egad! it’s deuced extraordinary,” suddenly ex¬ 
claimed Ascott, “here’s a go, I can’t find my pocketbook.” 

Tom Bob gave a start. 

“Look carefully, sir, look again; what you say is really 
serious, you must make sure.” 

With a pale face Ascott searched through all his pockets 
—everywhere. 

“No, there’s no doubt whatever, my pocket-book has 
disappeared; it’s not that I had a great deal of money in 
it, but the thing is very unpleasant.” 

Tom Bob lit a cigarette with a nonchalant air. 

“Now that it’s known for sure your pocket-book has 
disappeared, the only thing left to do is to get it back; that’s 
not very difficult perhaps.” 

All eyes turned in astonishment at Tom Bob, who 
went on: 

“A detective, and above all an American detective, owes 
it to himself to discover in any assemblage of people, no 
matter what, any pickpockets therein, and this at the first 
glance.” 

The young Frenchman started poking merciless fun at 
the sententious and dogmatic language used by the Ameri¬ 
can detective: 

“And pray, sir, by what do you know them?” 

Tom Bob looked the youth up and down from head to 
foot, and said nothing for a moment or two. Then he re¬ 
plied: “By their boots.” 

His audience held their sides. Decidedly Mr. Tom Bob 
was an original and diverting travelling companion, and 
everybody crowded to the far end of the corridor where he 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


96 

stood ensconced in a corner. The American detective 
proceeded to harangue his listeners. 

“The pickpockets on trains de luxe ” he declared, “have 
this much in common with the officers of the Criminal 
Investigation Department, that they are usually ill-shod. 
With one class as with the other, there is nothing, speaking 
generally, to find fault with in the get-up. Hat from the 
best maker, clothes of an irreproachable cut, tasteful neck¬ 
tie, well-kept hands, everything proclaims the man of the 
world; but there is a small detail, a grain of sand, the 
proverbial grain of sand that throws the best adjusted 
machine out of gear, and that grain of sand is nothing 
more nor less than the footwear . . .” 

Tom Bob broke off, and turning to the young Frenchman 
who was listening with a highly quizzical smile: 

“Sir,” he asked, “will you allow me to ask you a question 
—what is your profession?” 

At this direct and almost peremptory demand, the youth 
blushed in some embarrassment. The answer came in a 
dull, heavy voice: 

“Why, sir, if I chose not to answer, I should be within 
my rights and would tell you nothing . . . But there, I 
have nothing to hide—I am a student, a medical student, 
sir.” 

The young man was evidently annoyed and turning his 
back on his questioner, he left the corridor. 

Suddenly, a few moments after this, the train was 
plunged into utter darkness. The track, after running for 
some distance alongside the Seine near Bonnieres, had 
entered a tunnel. The Princess Danidoff’s anxious voice 
was heard complaining: “Why isn’t the carriage lighted? 
How very extraordinary!” 

Tom Bob gave a sharp order: 

“Have a care, ladies; look out, gentlemen; this dark¬ 
ness is altogether abnormal; it is due to no negligence on 
the part of the Company, but undoubtedly to the act of 
some miscreant; guard your jewelry, watch your pockets.” 

A few moments that seemed like hours, and then, issu¬ 
ing suddenly from the bowels of the earth, the train re¬ 
gained the light of day and sped on across the open country. 

Mrs. Bigelow gave a cry; her reticule had vanished. 
“My bag,” she groaned, “what has become of my little 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


97 

bag? Why, it’s appalling, verily this land of France is 
nothing but a den of thieves.” 

Mr. Van Buren remarked: “I thought just now Mr. 
Bob was joking, but I am beginning to think he was 
perfectly serious.” 

“By Gad!” exclaimed Ascott, who could not believe 
his pocket-book had really vanished and had just finished 
turning his portmanteau upside down, “by Gad! I think 
I ought to know something about it.” 

The American detective was biting his lips with annoy¬ 
ance; mechanically he lit a cigarette, then tossed it away, 
only to light another. 

A ticket collector passed along the train, shouting 
“tickets! tickets, please!” But two passengers found them¬ 
selves unable to produce theirs—Ascott and Mrs. Bigelow. 

The group in the corridor, already aware of the strange 
disappearance of the Englishman’s pocket-book and the 
American lady’s reticule, attacked the Company’s official, 
complaining of the thefts, claiming the protection of French 
law, threatening the most terrible reprisals. The unhappy 
collector knew nothing about it and grasped only one fact, 
to wit, that two passengers were travelling without tickets. 
The discussion was growing acrimonious when Tom Bob 
intervened. 

“My good man,” he said, “will you be so good as not 
to press this lady and gentleman for a few minutes; their 
tickets are not lost, only mislaid—mislaid in somebody 
else’s pocket; it will be all right, will it not, if the tickets 
are handed to you before reaching Paris? I guarantee this 
will be the case.” Bob’s specific undertaking reassured 
the man. “Very good!” he said, “we’ll see about it at 
Asnieres.” 

Ascott was about to pester the detective with a string 
of questions, but the latter stopped him with a shake of 
the head. 

“Wait a bit,” he said, “I think we’re slowing down.” 

The train in fact was slackening speed, though no station 
was in sight; on the contrary it had just run into the 
Forest of Saint-Germain; great trees bordered the line on 
either side. 

Tom Bob dashed hurriedly down the corridor, the train 
going slower and slower all the time. Suddenly the detec- 


98 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

tive sprang forward. The door opening from the corridor 
on to the permanent way had been unfastened from the 
inside by someone proposing to get out, presumably in¬ 
tending to take advantage of the diminishing speed of the 
train to jump down on to the ballast without fear of 
accident. 

Quick as this suspicious movement had been, Tom 
Bob had forestalled it, seizing the individual by the collar. 

“So ho! my young friend,” he cried, without relaxing 
his hold, but on the contrary twisting his wrist hard, so as 
to paralyse all resistance, “so you wanted to give your 
friends the slip, did you? That’s not pretty behaviour, 
upon my word!” 

Pale as death, with a look of fear on his face, the other 
growled in a savage voice: 

“Let go, by God, let go, or I’ll kill you.” 

But Tom Bob only smiled: “Kill me, eh?” he laughed, 
“what with? with your revolver; just feel in your pocket 
with your free hand, my fine little man, you’ll find your 
gun’s not there any more.” 

The startled thief gave a choking cry of terror; mechani¬ 
cally he did as he was bid and searched his pocket. The 
detective was right, his revolver had vanished. 

“It was I confiscated it, my lad,” the detective informed 
him, “you are too young to use such weapons handily; 
a student, the deuce! ... a student like you can’t expect 
to have the dexterity of a master like me; besides, we 
have this little difference between us, I’m on the job for 
honest reasons, while you ...” 

The arrested fugitive .threw himself on the ground, 
hoping in this way to slip out of the detective’s grasp. 
The latter went on calmly twisting the fellow’s arm, who 
swore savagely, glaring like a trapped wild beast at his 
captor. 

Attracted by the noise of the struggle a number of 
people had run to the spot; amongst the first to arrive 
were Van Buren and Ascott. In a moment they had 
realized what had occurred, and with a mighty cheer ac¬ 
knowledged the wonderful perspicacity of their compatriot, 
who had marked down among the throng of passengers the 
individual who was undoubtedly the culprit and had ar¬ 
rested him so cleverly. All recognized the man, it was the 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


99 

young Frenchman, the same who had given himself out as 
a medical student. 

Mrs. Bigelow had come to take a peep at Tom Bob’s 
prisoner, and now rejoined Sonia Danidoff: “It is quite 
true, my dear,” she confided to the princess, “Mr. Bob was 
quite right, one must beware of people who are ill shod; 
that man wore horrid bad boots.” The princess was very 
pale and still quite unstrung: “It’s frightful, these things, 
appalling; it has made me quite ill!” 

Meantime the compartment into which, finding it by 
chance unoccupied, the American detective had uncere¬ 
moniously pushed his prisoner, resounded with a chorus 
of indignant outcries against the pseudo-student. As quick 
as lightning the police-officer had secured the fellow’s wrists 
with a miniature pair of handcuffs, so small as to be hardly 
visible, but strong enough to bear any strain. 

The Superintendent now appeared on the scene much 
harassed by all these varied incidents, on which he would 
have to make a circumstantial report, a task made the 
more difficult by the fact that the worthy official, having 
no actual knowledge of the details, was asking himself 
which of the two parties was actually in the right and 
which in the wrong, these foreign fashionables travelling 
without tickets or the young Parisian whom an American 
police-officer had taken upon himself to handcuff. 

“I don’t wish to hear a word,” declared the Superin¬ 
tendent, “I’m not going to decide between you, you will 
make your explanations to the Special Constabulary at 
the terminus.” 

“Nothing could be fairer,” Tom Bob agreed, adding 
with characteristic phlegm: “At the same time, sir, if you 
wish here and now to have the two missing tickets, all you 
have to do is to search that young gentleman’s pockets, I 
have no doubt they are in his possession.” 

“I prefer to do nothing,” insisted the official, shaking 
his head in a puzzled way, “I shall do nothing, you will 
explain yourselves, as I said before, to the Constabulary 
Office at Saint-Lazare.” 

A quarter of an hour later, still in a state of breathless 
excitement, the first class passengers of the Trans-Atlantic 
express arrived at their journey’s end. Instead of leaving 


100 


THE LONG ARM OF FAN TOMAS 


the station, they all waited in silence on the platform where 
the train had pulled up, formed up in two lines, between 
which marched Tom Bob and his captive. They had 
been the last to leave the train, but not unaccompanied; 
four police-officers, to whom the Superintendent had beck¬ 
oned as the train ran in, escorted the pair, equally deter¬ 
mined that neither one nor the other, detective or culprit, 
should escape. 

Who was right and who was wrong? This was what 
nobody knew. However, a few minutes later, before the 
Special Commissary, light began to dawn. The individual 
whom Tom Bob had accused of theft was searched. On 
him was found Ascott’s pocket book, Mrs. Bigelow’s reticule 
—and a leather purse, absolutely empty! 

“Where have you put the money that was in this purse?” 
asked the Commissary sternly. 

But Tom Bob burst out laughing: “That purse was 
empty to begin with, sir,” he declared, “I can assure you of 
that much, for it is my own. It’s what I call my decoy- 
purse. When I’m bent on looking after matters in a crowd, 
I put it well in sight, hanging out of my vest pocket, and 
wait events. The expected result never fails to arrive, the 
pickpockets take me for a fool, make a dead set at me 
and rob me with the more ease inasmuch as I help them 
all I can. It doesn’t bring them in a lot, for I can’t afford 
to be generous with them, but it has this great advantage, 
it enables me to make the gentleman’s acquaintance. That, 
Mr. Commissary, is how we do things in America, or at any 
rate how Tom Bob, the American detective, does ’em!” 

The Special Commissary looked at the American in 
bewilderment, not unmixed with a touch of jealousy. It 
could not be denied the man was very clever and he had 
just done a pretty stroke of business, in which unfortu¬ 
nately the French police could find little to boast about. 
Still the Commissary thanked the detective, and added: 

“We shall perhaps require you to give evidence, sir; 
where shall I be able to find you?” 

Tom Bob pencilled a few words on his card, saying at 
the same time: “I have engaged rooms at the Hotel 
Terminus; the police will always find me there at their 
disposal.” 

A minute or two more and Ascott recovered possession 


TOM BOB ON THE SPOT 


101 


of his pocket-book, and Mrs. Bigelow’s reticule returned to 
its lawful owner. The Americans were one and all delighted, 
and wished that very evening to celebrate their fellow- 
countryman’s splendid triumph; Tom Bob, however, asked 
modestly to be excused, declaring he was tired out, and 
quickly disappeared in the crowd. 

In the Commissary’s office, the requisite papers were in 
preparation for the committal of the pickpocket when a 
superior official entered. 

“What is it, sir?” asked the Commissary. 

“Why, this, sir; the individual in your charge is known 
to the police.” 

“Well, what about him?” 

“That man is an old gaol-bird; we don’t know his proper 
name, but among the crooks he goes by the nickname of 
the ‘Beauty Boy’.” 



CHAPTER XI 


MAD AS A HATTER 

All was bustle and movement in the great entrance-hall 
of the Hotel Terminus, the imposing edifice that rears its 
bulk immediately outside the Gare Saint-Lazare; there 
was a never ceasing coming and going of travellers, new 
customers continually arriving from the trains reaching 
Paris from all parts, others taking their departure for a 
hundred different destinations in all quarters of the globe. 
The throng was especially dense round a small office of 
a severe and dignified aspect worthy of a public Ministry, 
but more elegant in its furniture and appointments, where 
three active young women were busy quickly and methodi¬ 
cally answering countless questions in a dozen different 
languages, entering the names of the various newcomers 
in a great ledger and indicating the rooms assigned them. 

Amongst other applicants was the American Tom Bob, 
cool and collected as always. In two minutes he had 
completed the necessary formalities, and, under the guidance 
of a servant of the hotel carrying his hand baggage, was 
crossing the hall towards the lift. But turning suddenly 
on the man, the traveller shook his head emphatically and 
announced his intention of mounting, by the stairs to the 
suite he had previously engaged by wireless on the third 
floor. 

“I don’t like lifts,” he said peremptorily, and heedless 
of the look of surprise on the servant’s face at so unusual 
a preference, insisted on adopting the slower and more 
fatiguing route. 

Before reaching the foot of the grand staircase, however, 
he was very unexpectedly—to the best of his belief the 
American did not know a soul in all Paris—accosted by a 
shabbily dressed young man, a total stranger to him, who 
earnestly craved the favour of a few minutes’ conversation. 

“I am a friend,” he urged eagerly and ingratiatingly, “of 
102 


MAD AS A HATTER 


103 


someone who knows you, who has often had occasion to 
describe some of your exploits to me, and who, I have 
no doubt whatever, would authorize me to use his name 
to secure the interview I have the honour to beg of you, of 
your kindness, to accord.” 

Short and sharp, Tom Bob stopped him in mid career. 

“I have not a friend in France,” he declared. 

The young man smiled, not at all disconcerted, only 
saying, in a very low whisper: 

“Oh, yes, you have—one at any rate—Juve!” 

Not a muscle of Tom Bob’s face moved; nevertheless 
the great American detective must have been well ac¬ 
quainted with the name of the king of police-officers, nor 
indeed could he well fail to know something of Juve’s 
famous doings, for he replied at once: 

“Follow me, sir”—and putting an abrupt end to the 
dialogue, he turned his back on the young man, and 
marching on in front without a word of apology, started 
to mount the stairs. 

“No. 142, here you are, sir! your luggage will be up in 
ten minutes, sir.” 

Tom Bob and the unknown stranger who followed him 
had just been ushered into the room the detective had 
engaged several days ago by wireless from mid-Atlantic. 
Now, laying his hand on the waiter’s shoulder, he ordered 
him: 

“Have my luggage here in one hour from now, and not 
before! I particularly wish not to be disturbed.” 

The man looked at him in astonishment; this traveller 
had tastes exactly the opposite of those of the ordinary 
run of customers. However, the well-trained servant, 
without a word indicating his surprise, went on: 

“Here is the bell, sir—one ring for the waiter who 
attends to your room, two for the chambermaid; this is 
the cold water tap and there’s the hot; the electric switch 
is by the head of the bed.” 

Tom Bob was standing in the middle of the room and 
gazing steadfastly at the ceiling while the man was speaking. 
Then he put an odd question: 

“How long ago was it the gentleman who has the bed¬ 
room immediately over mine first came to the hotel?” 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


104 

The waiter stared, more surprised than ever. “I haven’t 
an idea, sir,” he admitted; “but why?” 

Tom Bob took the man by the shoulders and pushed 
him gently out of the room: 

“It interests me enormously. It is now twenty past 
seven, you will find means to give me this information at 
twenty past eight, in sixty minutes, when they bring up 
my luggage. Now go!” 

And now, when the servant was gone and the door shut 
behind him, Tom Bob at last turned to the stranger, 
who was, no less than the other, staring at him, bewildered 
by his queer behaviour. 

“You will excuse me, won’t you,” he asked, “but before I 
give you my attention, I have a little piece of work to do.” 

The other bowed, saying only by way of remonstrance: 

“I must mention again, Mr. Bob, that what I have to 
say is pretty urgent . . .” 

But the detective only smiled and cutting short his 
protest: “There’s something else,” he declared, “that’s 
very much more urgent, Monsieur Jerome Fandor.” 

Then as the journalist gave a start of amazement at 
hearing his name spoken—it was as a matter of fact Jerome 
Fandor who had just now accosted the detective in the 
entrance-hall and asked leave to speak with him—Tom 
Bob, calm as ever, signified with an imperative gesture 
that he was not to interrupt: 

“Something very much more urgent, I repeat. Will 
you be so kind as to help me in my little piece of work?” 

More and more surprised, but confounded by his host’s 
phlegm, Fandor nodded “yes,” without so much as opening 
his lips. 

“Then,” Tom Bob went on, “here’s how I start the job. 
Look! I take off my hat . . .so; then I plant my chair 
against the wall ... so; I take my seat on the chair . . . 
Have you a pencil on you, Monsieur Fandor?” 

“I have, sir.” 

“Very good! Will you be so very obliging as to take it 
and draw a line on—on the door; see here, exactly on a 
level with the top of my head.” 

Fandor carried out the order, lost in astonishment. 

“He’s mad,” he thought to himself; “the good man’s as 
mad as a hatter! What does it all mean?” 


MAD AS A HATTER 105 

His reflections were cut short by the detective, who 
announced in his deliberate voice: 

“The fact is, you see, I have a horror of high chairs.” 
And as he uttered these extraordinary words, Tom Bob 
got up and, kneeling down on the floor, turned the chair 
he had been sitting on the minute before upside down, then 
drew from his pocket a hunting-knife. 

“Don’t be afraid, Monsieur Fandor, I’m not going to 
open the blade; it is the saw I want to use.’ , 

So saying, he extracted from the handle a little saw of 
the kind often found in such knives. 

“Go on, sir, go on!” Fandor protested. “Can I help 
you?” 

“Oh! no, it’s done in a moment,” and as if he were 
performing the most natural action in the world, Tom 
Bob, still on his knees, began to saw off the legs of the 
chair in front of him. 

“I have a horror of high chairs,” he said for the second 
time; “that’s why I saw off the legs, as you see, and con¬ 
vert it into a low one; it’ll cost me a trifle to pay for the 
damage, but what of that? . . .Ah! that’s done!” 

The detective had in fact abbreviated the chair legs by 
eight or nine inches. He set the chair on its feet again, 
and after making sure it stood firm, sat down; then spring¬ 
ing up again, still without uttering a word, he went over 
to the bed standing on one side of the room, and picked 
up a pillow and bolster, which he threw down near the wall. 

“You are a young man, Monsieur Fandor,” he remarked, 
“you are not just come off a journey; you are not tired 
like me; besides, I don’t want to demolish all the hotel 
furniture ... in a word, will you be so kind as to seat 
yourself on these improvised cushions? . . . yes? cross- 
legged, if you like.’ 

This time Fandor showed such a comic face of astonish¬ 
ment that even the phlegmatic American could not help 
smiling. 

“I am not mad,” he observed simply by way of explana¬ 
tion, “but I have a horror of seeing people sitting in high 
chairs when I am myself seated in a low one—a whim, 
Monsieur Fandor, a monomania, if you like, of no impor¬ 
tance. . . . Now, what can I do for you?” 

Jerome Fandor squatted on the ground in obedience to 


106 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

the detective’s strange invitation, while the latter took his 
place on the seat so oddly truncated. 

“Sir,” declared the journalist, “the name I have men¬ 
tioned, the name of Juve, must have informed you of the 
object of my visit. You can guess ...” 

But Tom Bob uttered a sharp protest: “No, I know 
nothing, I cannot guess. Besides, I never guess; I infer, 
that’s all.” 

“Nevertheless you guessed my name, Monsieur Tom 
Bob?” 

“Not at all! I only inferred you were Fandor from the 
fact that you invoked Juve’s name by way of introduction 
to me and that, as I look at it, there can hardly be another 
individual but you, Jerome Fandor, to act so imprudently 
as to name Juve as guarantee, when Juve is generally 
taken to be Fantomas!” 

On hearing the American’s words, Fandor sprang up 
instinctively to grasp his hand. 

“Oh, sir,” he cried, “thank you for what you say, I 
thank you from the bottom of my heart! At the first 
word, I guessed you were to be an ally. You do not think, 
do you, that Juve is Fantomas?” 

Tom Bob interrupted sharply again: 

“I think I told you to sit on the floor! You get up 
instead; you are in the wrong, you must do what I ask. 
If you mean to jump up and down like this, I prefer to 
put off the interview you desire till to-morrow.” 

“But, sir . . . but!” Fandor stammered, again be¬ 
mused with surprise, as he sat down again, while the other 
insisted: 

“There’s no ‘but’ about it; it is so! However, let’s 
leave that. You did not come to see me, I presume, for 
the mere pleasure of annoying me by standing? You came 
to tell me something. What have you to tell me?” 

Fandor called up all his coolness, shut his eyes a second, 
pulled himself together, and now, in a calm voice, assented, 
without troubling further about his interlocutor’s eccen¬ 
tricities : 

“You are right, sir: I have come to tell you something, 
to tell you this—I am indeed Jerome Fandor.” 

“Excuse me,” broke in Tom Bob, “but how came you 
to recognize me?” 


MAD AS A HATTER 


107 


“Gad! sir/’ confessed Fandor, smiling innocently, “the 
newspapers, announcing your sensational arrival the other 
day, published your portrait, which no doubt they had among 
their stock of blocks. I knew, moreover, that you would 
land from the Lorraine, saw the Trans-Atlantic special 
come in, I followed you from the Commissary’s office which 
you visited, I don’t know for what reason, to this hotel, 
and. . . ” 

“Very good! . . . Now, you came to tell me?” 

“Sir,” replied Fandor, “you have challenged Fantomas 
to mortal combat; Fantomas, as you know, has set him¬ 
self to terrorize Paris, to make war on France, on civili¬ 
zation itself . . 

Tom Bob interrupted again: “I have heard of his 
challenge to the Chamber. Proceed!” 

“Good!” Fandor agreed. “But Fantomas has com¬ 
mitted crimes you have not heard of. Yesterday a Min¬ 
ister was killed . . .” 

“I know,” again affirmed the detective. 

“Already?” 

“Already? ... the papers I bought at Rouen!” 

“Then you also know that the day before yesterday, 
Mr. Bob, Fantomas murdered three police-officers, so ar¬ 
ranging it as to make it believed I was the criminal?” 

‘^No, I did not know that.” 

“In that case I well tell you about it”—and Fandor 
proceeded to relate clearly and succinctly his extraordinary 
adventure, concluding his narrative with the words: 

“Which comes to this, Mr. Tom Bob, that at this 
present moment not only does the fear of Fantomas 
paralyse all Paris, but further, public opinion accuses 
me of being Fantomas’ accomplice, or even Fantomas 
himself!” 

All the time the young man was speaking, Tom Bob kept 
nodding his approval at intervals. Now he broke in on 
the other’s remarks. 

“If you please,” he said, “better lie down, don’t you 
think, on the floor instead of just crouching, as you are 
now?” And as Fandor gazed at him in a sort of panic, the 
detective added in an explanatory tone: 

“My monomania, you know! Don’t be alarmed . . . 
You were saying, Monsieur Fandor, that people took you 


108 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

for Fantomas? But Fantomas is in prison; he is generally 
thought to be Juve, I understand?” 

“People don’t know what to think, sir. Certainly, two 
weeks ago, everybody accepted this monstrous improba¬ 
bility; now, in face of the new facts, they are doubtful. As 
for me, as you may well suppose, I have never varied in 
my belief. I know that Juve is Juve. You, sir, know it, 
too.” 

Again the detective nodded approval: “Certainly I do! 
By reputation I know Juve well; nay more, I have had 
occasion to pursue certain inquiries in conjunction with 
him. So I know he is not Fantomas. Besides which, like 
public opinion, Monsieur Fandor, I am for believing that 
if Juve mas Fantomas, the present crimes could not be 
committed . . . But, after all, in what you tell me, even 
in your story of the strange attack of which you were the 
victim, I see nothing particularly novel. What would you 
propose to do?” 

Fandor’s face paled: “It is something more than a 
proposal, sir, that I am here to make you. When I read 
the announcement of your arrival, and recalled all Juve 
had told me in praise of Tom Bob, I congratulated myself, 
I say again, on the noble ally you would be for me, on 
the fine opportunity I had of obtaining by you, and thanks 
to you, Juve’s release from gaol—and that is the reason I 
resolved to come to you and give you the means, at the 
first moment after your arrival, to make a grand impression 
on the French police.” 

“I fail to understand you.” 

“I will explain. Once succeed in effecting an arrest, 
Monsieur Bob, a difficult arrest, within four and twenty 
hours of your arrival in Paris, and you will instantly be 
the hero of the day! They cannot any longer then affect 
in high places the same indifference the French police will 
certainly show towards you, chagrined as they are that 
you should come to help them out of their difficulty. A 
sensational arrest, loudly proclaimed and commended by 
the Press, will give you prestige, add weight to your dec¬ 
laration, when you come to declare, as I hope you will, 
that Juve is not Fantomas.” 

“And this arrest, Monsieur Fandor?” 

“This arrest, Monsieur Bob, I am going to tell you of.” 


MAD AS A HATTER 


109 

Carried away by the importance of his statement, Fandor 
again rose to his feet. But barely a second did he retain 
that attitude! Quick as thought, Tom Bob sprang from 
his chair, fell on his knees, seized the journalist round the 
waist and forced him back on the floor! 

“Stay lying down, I tell you!” he ordered in a furious 
voice; “have you no nose?” 

“No nose?” stammered Fandor, really alarmed by the 
detective’s conduct. 

Already the latter had resumed his seat on his abbrevi¬ 
ated chair: “Forgive me,” he said with a smile—“my 
monomania! only my monomania again! . . .You were 
saying?” 

Fandor resolved to show no more surprise at anything, 
and above all not to move again. 

“This arrest,” he went on, “this sensational arrest that 
is needed to give you prestige, I am going to supply you 
with the means of carrying out. Some days ago an un¬ 
fortunate bank messenger was murdered in M. Moche’s 
house, the same house where, as I described just now, I 
was myself the victim of mysterious violence. The police 
at this present time have proved unable to discover either 
the body of the victim or his murderer. His murderer, 
I know, I denounce him here and now; it is, it must be, 
it cannot but be M. Moche!” 

“M. Moche?” 

“Yes!”—and Fandor began a detailed account of how 
he had come to know that dubious man of business. He 
said how he associated with notorious apaches, how he 
was habitually engaged in shady transactions with those 
gentry, that in particular he was the intimate and friend 
of a bully, one Paulet. He concluded: “There is besides 
a damning piece of evidence against him. While I was 
in the Chinese lantern, where Fantomas had imprisoned 
me, I saw the officers find in the garret a button from the 
uniform of the bank collector who has disappeared. This 
garret belongs to M. Moche, it was in this garret the crime 
was committed. Moche must be the criminal. You will 
understand, Mr. Bob, that after I had crept away along 
the house-roofs after my extraordinary adventure, I could 
not, under pain of being immediately arrested, return to 
make investigations at M. Moche’s. Nor have the police, 


no THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

on their side, being convinced that Fantomas is responsible 
for the murder of the collector and that I am Fantomas, 
troubled M. Moche. You are free to act: I beseech you to 
move heaven and earth to clear up with all speed the 
mystery of the bank employe’s death.” 

The detective nodded his comprehension. 

“What you tell me is interesting, very inter . . 

But, cutting him off short, with a dull roar that was 
unmistakable, an explosion shook the room. It came from 
above the two men’s heads, like a hurricane sweeping by. 
Facing them, fragments of plaster, bits of the woodwork, 
broke away, and the wall was pitted with little holes. A 
thick, acrid smoke, smelling like gunpowder, rolled through 
the room in heavy blue-grey wreaths. 

Tom Bob did not so much as start; Fandor stammered 
a terrific oath. Then after a moment’s silence, the detective 
in the calmest way completed his interrupted sentence: 
“. . . Very interesting what you are telling me; ... but 
what has just happened is interesting, too. And now, 
Monsieur Fandor, you can stand up.” 

But a loud knocking was heard at the door. A waiter 
was asking: 

“What is the matter—an accident?” 

“No,” Tom Bob assured him, without opening, “an inci¬ 
dent. I was shaving and my water-heater burst . . . only 
tell them to bring up my luggage in an hour and a half’s 
time, not before.” 

The detective’s voice was so calm the man seemed satis¬ 
fied, while amid the never ending turmoil of the great hotel 
the violent explosion in the room had apparently passed 
almost unnoticed. 

When the waiter was gone, Tom Bob got up from his 
chair, remarking: 

“So now, Monsieur Fandor, you understand why I made 
such a point of our both being seated as close to the ground 
as possible.” 

But Fandor shook his head. “I don’t understand any¬ 
thing at all,” he protested. 

“Well, go and look at the pencil line you drew just 
now, on a level with my head.” 

Fandor ran to the wall and could not restrain an excla¬ 
mation: 


MAD AS A HATTER 


111 


“By the Lord! the line is exactly in the zone riddled by 
the explosion of the bomb!” 

“It was not a bomb.” 

“Not a bomb? What was it then?” 

“A shot fired by Fantomas.” 

“By Fantomas?” 

“Precisely, by Fantomas.” 

The other’s calm was so wonderful, his imperturbability 
so complete, that Fandor felt almost ashamed of himself 
to be so profoundly agitated. Once again he called upon 
his strength of will power and mastered his feelings. In 
a quiet voice he asked: 

“Well then, sir, what has happened? Why did you ask 
me to mark just that height on the wall? You 
guessed? . . .” 

Tom Bob, hands in pockets, was looking up at the top 
of a tall wardrobe. 

“I did not guess anything,” he said. “I never guess, I 
infer.” 

“But what have you inferred then?” 

“Why, I observe . . .” 

“But, good Lord, what do you observe?” 

“What occurs, Monsieur Fandor! Now look here, is it, 
yes or no, a logical conclusion that Fantomas was put out 
by my arrival? Was it, yes or no, logical to conclude that 
knowing, as everybody knows, thanks to my wireless mes¬ 
sages, that I am setting to work to arrest him, while he 
proposes to terrify Paris and force the Chambers to sat¬ 
isfy his demands, was it, I ask again, logical to suppose 
that he was going to try to murder me?” 

“Logical, why yes; but how did you guess?” 

“I argued, Monsieur Fandor; I argued that Fantomas, 
wishing to murder me, would do it as swiftly as possible; 
consequently, if I wished to escape his criminal manoeuvres, 
it was advisable to lay a trap for him. The trap consisted 
in engaging a room here. Fantomas knew of this. How, 
I cannot say, but Fantomas knows everything. For my 
part, I knew—knowledge is power—I knew that, on my 
coming to the Terminus, an attempt was going to be made 
on my life. What sort of an attempt? I felt uncertain. 
I suspected the lift—that risk avoided, in revenge I was 
pretty well convinced, when I entered this room, the room 


112 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


I had engaged in advance, that something was going to 
happen here. But what? I thought of a poisonous gas 
infiltrated during the night, and that is why I questioned 
the waiter about the occupant of the room above. Mon¬ 
sieur Fandor, I told you you had no nose, did I not? 
The fact is I am astonished that you didn’t, like me, detect 
in the room a faint smell of burning, of burning tinder.” 

Fandor, lost in admiration at the precision of the Ameri¬ 
can detective’s discoveries, the nature of which he was 
beginning to fathom, declared: “I noticed the smell of 
burning perfectly well, but . . 

“But you drew no inference from it. / inferred that 
a slow-match was burning—but where? To search for it 
was running a risk, an incautious movement might precipi¬ 
tate the crisis. Instead, I said to myself, Monsieur 
Fandor—the natural thing for a traveller to do when he 
enters a bedroom is to sit down. Therefore it is more 
than probable, if a shot is to be fired, from a revolver say, 
or from a gun, that the weapon will be levelled at the height 
of a person’s head seated on a chair. I cut down my chair 
so as to be below the line of fire! I made you sit on the 
floor to save you from being hit!” 

One thing, and one thing only, could Fandor find to say 
to express his admiration adequately: “Juve could not 
have done better!” 

“Truly, it was not so bad. Now, if you would like to 
get to the bottom of things, we will take a look on top 
of that wardrobe . . . There, what did I say?” 

From the top of the wardrobe Tom Bob, mounted on a 
chair, proceeded to unship a sort of gatling-gun, consisting 
of six barrels fixed side by side, the muzzles of which, 
arranged fan-wise, commanded the whole room. 

“Don’t you see,” the detective concluded, “it’s all as 
plain as daylight. Here’s how Fantomas set to work. He 
hired this room, up to seven or eight o’clock this morning, 
I imagine. Seeing it was taken for to-night by me, it 
was evident no one would occupy it between us two. On 
top of the wardrobe he lashed an extraordinary contrivance 
loaded up with grape-shot, which swept the whole place 
with a hurricane of lead; to touch off the charge, he laid 
down a slow-match of tinder.” 

Fandor shook his head: “No,” he objected, so enthralled 


MAD AS A HATTER 


113 


in spite of himself by the interest of the investigation as 
to have completely recovered his clearness of mind; “y° u 
seem to forget one detail; if he lit the slow-match before 
leaving, it’s ten to one the smoke would have been noticed 
by the hotel waiter. Then besides, it would have needed a 
great length of slow-match, and that meant risking a con¬ 
flagration . . 

But Tom Bob indulged in another meaning smile, as he 
said: 

“Fantomas left, I suppose, about eight in the morning, 
quite early anyway; but his match was not lit till two or 
three o’clock in the afternoon. You needn’t be surprised. 
Fandor, the trick is quite elementary! Look there, on the 
carpet, near the wardrobe; you see those little shards 
of glass? the fragments of a burning-glass! The tinder was 
set alight by means of that lens, scientifically adjusted for 
the precise moment when the sun had reached the altitude 
chosen by Fantomas. It’s really very ingenious, after all!” 

And as Fandor remained silent, struck dumb with ad¬ 
miration for the coolness displayed by the American, who 
had thus escaped by a hair’s breadth the terrible machina¬ 
tions of a murderer, and at the same time saved his com¬ 
panion from a hideous death, Tom Bob resumed: 

“The present business being now cleared up, and Fan¬ 
tomas responsible for yet another attempted murder, let 
us pass on to serious matters. This is not really important, 
as it only concerns two of his individual enemies, you and 
me . . . You were telling me just now, that M. Moche was 
guilty of the bank messenger’s murder? . . . h’m, that’s 
not so sure. Come, Monsieur Fandor, just give me a little 
information about the man’s associates.” 

At the detective’s invitation Fandor had at last installed 
himself comfortably in a big armchair. 

“Moche’s associates,” he said, “are a deplorably bad lot; 
to begin with, amongst other notorious ruffians, I can give 
you the names, or rather the nicknames, of several, 
“Beardy,” “the Beadle,” “the Cellarman,”—women too, 
“Big Ernestine,” little Nini, who, I told you before, has for 
her fancy man, the bully Paulet—calls himself a stone¬ 
mason, even works at his trade in his spare moments, for I 
know Moche has lately given him several jobs to do; then 
there is “Beauty Boy,” another choice blackguard, and . . 


n 4 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


But Tom Bob suddenly interrupted his informant. 

“I am dog tired,” he declared, “and half dropping asleep. 
Listen here, Monsieur Fandor, my own opinion is, an 
investigation is advisable before deciding on anything. I 
give you my word I will investigate . . 


CHAPTER XII 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 

The American detective Tom Bob was no ordinary man. 
The very first day after his arrival he had signalized his 
presence and drawn public attention to himself in a manner 
at once original and redounding greatly to his credit. 
Within a few hours of landing on French soil he had shown 
his mettle by the arrest of a dangerous malefactor, a pro¬ 
fessional criminal, “Beauty Boy,” the apache. The same 
day he had adroitly escaped an abominable attempt on his 
life, and, to crown ail, in the course of a series of interviews 
accorded to the reporters of the different newspapers, he 
had, in direct contradiction to the generally received opinion, 
stoutly maintained that the ex-journalist Fandor, the bosom 
friend of the man Juve, now incarcerated in the prison of 
La Sante, was a very honest man, the last person to have 
committed the crimes imputed to him. 

For several days, in fact up to the time Tom Bob had 
come to divert the public curiosity, the Inspectors of the 
Criminal Investigation Bureau had carried out the most 
minute investigations at the house where the bank mes¬ 
senger’s murder was supposed, if not to have been com¬ 
mitted, at any rate to have been planned and prepared. 
For whole days together police-officers in plain clothes 
pursued careful inquiries, questioning the inmates, even 
going so far as to collect evidence as to the past life and 
antecedents of each of the tenants. 

True, no actual trace had been found of the unfortunate 
employe of the Comptoir National, but the uniform button 
discovered in the garret where M. Moche had with such 
misplaced generosity, as he said himself, given a charitable 
asylum to Fandor made it reasonable to conclude, without 
any undue pressing of the evidence, that the collector had 
disappeared not of his own free will and initiative, but 

115 


n6 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

simply because he had been first robbed and then mur¬ 
dered. Was the same assassin also responsible for the 
death of the police-officers? Was Fandor the author of 
both crimes? Many members of the Department were 
inclined to think he was, though others hesitated to com¬ 
mit themselves to any definite opinion. 

At any rate, there was one certainty, one sure fact, that 
delighted the inmates of No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau, to 
wit, that the police, diverted from the old line of scent 
and henceforth mainly preoccupied to discover the assassin 
of Desire Ferrand, were more or less relaxing in their 
embarrassing attentions, and no longer exercised the same 
constant and careful surveillance over the scene of the first 
tragedy. 

At an early hour one morning, three or four days after 
Tom Bob’s arrival in Paris, old Moche, looking just as 
dubious and dirty as usual, reached his office in the Rue 
Saint-Fargeau, where he had not been for several days— 
not that this was a matter to cause the concierge any 
surprise, M. Moche being habitually a decidedly inter¬ 
mittent occupier of his rooms. The old man seemed in 
jovial spirits. With little, quick steps he mounted the 
stairs, whistling a tune; then inserting a key in the lock, 
he entered his flat. But the old brigand, a cautious man 
ever since his adventure with Paulet and Nini, took good 
care to double lock the door again behind him. Changing 
his long frock-coat for a short jacket, and planting on top 
of the wig that covered his bald pate a velvet skull-cap in 
place of his silk-hat, the old fellow set to work to sort out 
the numerous letters that had arrived by post. To tell 
the truth, he did not take the trouble to open them, for 
he knew by merely glancing at the address what each con¬ 
tained, to wit, nothing whatever—a sheet of blank paper 
or a cutting from an old newspaper. The fact is, Moche 
was in a better position than anyone to know beforehand 
the contents of each of his letters, inasmuch as, being 
desirous of putting the concierge off the scent and im¬ 
pressing him by the voluminous correspondence intended 
for him, the old man had the habit of every day ad¬ 
dressing a dozen letters and prospectuses to himself! It 
was a dodge to make people believe he really followed the 
profession of a business agent and could boast a numerous 
clientele. 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 


117 


This time, however, in sorting his letters, Moche put 
one aside; this particular one he did not recognize, and 
discontinuing his scrutiny, he tore open the envelope in 
feverish haste. It was written on good paper—evidently 
from a correspondent of importance. M. Moche read: 

“Sir —/ have to inform you that I have jicst arrived in 
Paris and propose to call on Wednesday morning at your 
office. You obliged me some time ago by a loan of money; 
1 now intend to discharge the debt. I am therefore coming 
to repay you . . .” 

“Ha, ha!” laughed Pere Moche, “a pleasant surprise to 
come! for once a debtor writes to say he is going to pay 
up without any need to twist his tail. Well, the exception 
proves the rule; all the same I rather doubt what it all 
means.” 

Then he jumped to the fourth page and examined the 
signature. 

“By the Lord,” he exclaimed, “it’s my young friend 
Ascott . . . Ascott, that feeble-minded Englishman I have 
heard nothing of for a very long time—though I never felt 
any anxiety about the man. Egad! I knew very well 
he’d been in Paris the last eight and forty hours! is there 
anything that happens Pere Moche doesn’t know? Let’s 
see what else the young gentleman has to say? ... He 
wants to settle up with me, a very laudable intention, com¬ 
ing from a very honest man. Now how much does the 
chap owe me?” 

Leaving the letter on his desk, the old man trotted over 
to his safe, opened it, and hauling out a ledger began 
turning over the leaves eagerly. 

“Ascott, here we are! yes, eighteen months ago I lent 
him 15,000 francs; unless my calculations are all wrong, 
at the rate of interest agreed upon, he ought to pay me 
back to-day 22,000. Ah ha! not a bad bit of business! If 
only a man could have windfalls like that every day, he 
would be a millionaire in double quick time!” 

So saying, M. Moche locked up the book again in the 
strong-box, and came back to his desk, rubbing his hands. 

“I’ve only read the first few lines of his letter,” he said 
to himself, “and there’s four pages of the stuff. Can it by 
any chance be that Ascott at the end of his epistle has 
modified the good intentions expressed at the beginning?” 

Moche took up the letter again and skimmed through 


n8 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

it eagerly. “No,” he said, his face brightening, “no, he 
really means to pay me back.” 

But a look of chagrin suddenly darkened his ugly face. 

“Why, this is vexing,” he muttered; “now he doesn’t need 
me any more, he scorns me, he wishes us to break off all 
relations, he intends never to see me again. Oh, hoi 
none of that, my fine fellow! Just when the goose is fatted, 
I’m to part with it, eh? No fear, I’m not such a fool! 
It’s up to you, my good Monsieur Moche, to arrange things 
so as to creep up Mister Ascott’s sleeve from now on— 
and now more than ever.” 

The old advocate was at this point in his lucubrations, 
more and more convinced that at all hazards he must 
remain the rich young Englishman’s friend, when he was 
startled by a loud knock at the door. 

“That’s Ascott,” thought Moche, “let’s be quick and 
let him in.” The old fellow darted to the entrance of his 
modest dwelling; rapidly turned the key in the lock and 
threw the door wide open. 

To his profound surprise he found the newcomer was 
not the elegantly dressed gentleman he expected to see, 
but a little woman in a flowered peignoir , her hair down 
her back and her feet crammed into an old pair of sandals. 
It was Nini Guinon, who had come down from the floor 
above to pay a neighbourly visit to Pere Moche. 

“Halloa!” cried the child, who, without waiting for an 
invitation, had slipped into M. Moche’s office behind the 
barred partition, “why, you’re a regular bird of passage! 
never at home, always out! Every time I pass your door, 
I knock, I ring a peal, I stand there waiting—nothing! 
nobody! the bird’s flown, the old fox is not in his earth.” 

Nini was both angry and excited, as she stood before 
the old man, passing a feverish hand over her pale brow 
and ruffling her black locks, while the other looked at her 
without moving a muscle or saying a word. 

“I’m in a hole,” went on the young baggage, “and I’ve 
got to get out of it, Pere Moche; I’m fed up with the 
whole business, I am! Anyway, here’s straight talking— 
if you don’t go the way I want, I’ll just be off and blow 
the gaff to the police mugs.” 

“You’ll never do that, Nini,” the old man expostulated 
in cajoling tones, “you’re much too nice a girl.” 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 


119 

But Nini declined to be softened by compliments: “I 
shall do what I say,” she asseverated. 

“But come, out with it! what’s it all about?” Moche 
demanded. 

“What’s it all about, eh?” returned the girl, “why, it’s 
as clear as mud. I’m in a tight place, and other folks 
are going to be there too if things go on as they are. To 
begin with, I’ve had enough of living with Paulet; he 
frightens me, the man frightens me! Ever since I saw him 
do in the bank chap, I’m terrified all the time he’ll do 
my business for me, too. He’s no spunk at all; it’s not 
blood he has in his veins, it’s water; I sleep with him and 
I know what I’m talking about; every night he lies and 
sweats; it’s fear, that’s what it is! He dreams of the police, 
he dreams about the dead man, he yells out in his sleep. 
The man’s all broke to pieces, he’ll come to a bad end; 
if ever the ’tecs come questioning him a bit close, he’ll never 
have gumption enough to put ’em off with blarney, and 
then, by God! we’ll all be in the soup!” 

“Alas! my dear child,” murmured the old fellow hypo¬ 
critically, “what do you want me to do; all that business 
has nothing to do with me. You have killed a man, the 
stolen money has disappeared, you understand, disappeared, 
nobody can say where it is. Now suppose they accused 
me, the thing wouldn’t hold water for a moment; for why? 
because I’m well known as an honest, respectable business 
man. So get out of your own difficulties!” 

As a matter of fact Nini had from the first understood 
perfectly well what attitude old Moche would adopt under 
the circumstances. Not a doubt of it, if things turned out 
badly, the old business agent was clever enough to pull his 
iron safely out of the fire, and certainly cynical enough 
to leave his confederates in the lurch. But Nini had no no¬ 
tion of things going like that; she strode up to M. Moche, 
and shaking her little fist in the old man’s wrinkled face: 

“As sure as my name’s Nini,” she swore, “if ever we 
get run in for this job, I give you my oath, Pere Moche, 
you’ll leave every feather of your dirty plumage behind; 
but if we come to an agreement . . .” 

“If we come to an agreement . . .” the advocate re¬ 
peated the phrase with newly-aroused interest. 

“Well, then,” Nini went on, assuming the soft, coaxing, 


120 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


wheedling voice every woman can use on occasion, “if we 
come to some agreement in case of trouble arising, we shall 
be two, you and I, to say we have nothing whatever to do 
with the affair of the bank messenger, and that it was 
Paulet who did the trick all by himself, and got all there 
was to be got out of it . . . There!” 

The offer of partnership thus formulated by the young 
slut was just the sort of thing to appeal to the old usurer. 
Nodding his head approvingly: 

“Your notion’s really not such a bad one, my little girl,” 
he said; “only, what’s to become of you?” 

Nini, encouraged by the way the interview was shaping, 
had dropped nonchalantly into the one and only arm-chair 
the room contained. Now, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, 
the girl sat in a day-dream, a prophetic dream. 

“I have a sort of a notion,” she murmured, “that with all 
these new complications, Paulet is going to get cotched. 
First, there’s that journalist Fandor drawing attention to 
the house; then they find the button off the poor devil’s 
uniform in your garret; Fandor disappears; on the other 
hand Tom Bob arrives. What does the fellow count for? 
I don’t know, but I have my doubts; he must be pretty 
smart, he nabbed ‘Beauty Boy’ in less time than it takes 
to tell the story! So then, it all comes to this—little Nini’s 
had enough, thank you, she’s got to bolt, and that at sixty 
miles an hour, and Papa Moche, who’s no fool neither, has 
got to find her a place, for choice with the nobs, to save 
her from any future worries. Does that suit your book, 
Pere Moche? Is that settled, eh? . . . You’ll clearly un¬ 
derstand this, I didn’t leave the bosom of my family to go 
and rot on Devil’s Island or be eaten up by the mosquitoes 
at New Caledonia.” 

Pere Moche was prodigiously diverted by this announce¬ 
ment of her principles of action on the part of Paulet’s 
girl mistress. Undoubtedly there was something to be made 
of this little minx with the wide-awake look and bright 
eyes, so vicious and so astute. He was about to reply, 
when suddenly a peal on the door bell was heard. 

“Who’s that coming?” Nini asked anxiously, as she 
instinctively laid a hand on her bosom to restrain the 
excited beating of her heart. 

But Moche reassured her: “It’s nine o’clock,” he said. 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 


121 


“No doubt it’s a client who has an appointment. Hide 
yourself; I’m going to take him into the salon; then you’ll 
cut your stick while I’m receiving him.” Moche was 
right; on opening the door he found himself face to face 
with the young Englishman, Mr. Ascott, whose abusive 
letter he had been reading half an hour before. Moche 
with the supple servility that belonged to his mean, cautious 
nature, was lavish in bowings and scrapings, bending to 
the ground before the wealthy foreigner, while the latter, 
with an icy dignity, barely acknowledged his creditor’s 
courtesies with a curt nod: 

“If milord will condescend to step into my reception 
room? . . .” suggested M. Moche . . . 

Ascott obeyed mechanically, but disclaimed the rank 
his host had given him. 

“I am not Lord Ascott, Monsieur Moche; I am plain 
Mr. Ascott; the title of lord belongs to my honoured father.” 

“Ho, ho!” suggested the old man with a tactless grin, 
“a father—a father may die one fine day, and if I’m not 
mistaken, the sons inherit both the money and all the 
privileges and prerogatives.” 

The young man shrugged his shoulders: 

“I forbid you to speak of my honoured father, sir; and 
besides that, you must know that in no case shall I bear 
the title; I am a younger son of the family, my older 
brother will be My Lord.” 

But Moche was incorrigible and went on to insinuate: 

“The elder brother no doubt . . . but suppose he should 
happen to die, too.” 

Ascott stamped his foot angrily and cast a furious look 
at the old money-lender. 

“That is enough, sir,” he declared in an indignant voice 
quivering with restrained anger, “that is enough! let us 
settle up our accounts; that done, we will break off all 
relations.” 

But Moche was for slipping away: “Forgive me, dear 
sir, noble gentleman, honourable signor, if I trouble you 
to wait a few moments, but there is a lady in my office, 
a very important client; I must conclude my business with 
her. By your leave . . .” Moche, with another low bow, 
awaited the reply. “Get done, and be quick about it!” 
was the rough answer. 


122 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


The old brigand went back immediately to the office, 
where Nini was still waiting; she had never budged. 
Moche approached her with an air of triumph, calling 
softly: 

“Come here, little girl!” and on her obeying, drew her 
to the window, setting her with her face to the full light. 
With his coarse, hairy hands the old usurer lifted the child’s 
touzled locks, parted them on her forehead and imprisoned 
the tangled curls in his palm. Nini let him do as he liked, 
puzzled and uncomprehending. 

“D’you know,” declared the old man, “d’you know, with 
your hair down like a little girlie, you look ever so young.” 

“But,” protested Nini, “I’m not old; I’m barely sixteen 
and a half.” 

“I daresay,” resumed the other, “and when you don’t 
put on your naughty look and haven’t been drinking, you _ 
might verily be taken for a little saint. Now let’s see your 
hands.” 

Again Nini did as she was bid, and Moche spreading out 
the fingers on his fore-arm, examined the nails. “Quite 
good, again,” he announced, “carefully enough kept for a 
poor man’s child, and not too well kept neither, to make 
them think it’s a ‘gay woman’s’ hand.” 

Next moment, taking the girl by the shoulders, he gazed 
fixedly into her face with the air of one inspired. 

“Nini,” he cried, “I have a brilliant idea, and if only 
you’re not too clumsy, we’re going, you and I, to do some¬ 
thing mighty smart. Nini, next door there I’ve got a ripe 
pear, it’s up to you to pluck it; only, listen to me, I give 
you ten minutes to rig yourself out—not, mind you, like a 
street wench, but like an innocent little maid; leave your 
hair down, don’t wear a hat, put on your plainest frock, 
drop your eyes, look sweet and modest, and think of what 
you were a year ago, a good little virtuous girl, living with 
her mother and just done learning up her catechism. Pres¬ 
ently, that is to say directly you’re ready, come and pay 
me a visit. . . . I’m good for the rest!” 

Nini did not need telling twice: “I’m fly,” she declared, 
slapping the old fellow shrewdly on the back. Then, lightly 
and airily, she darted off. 

“She’s a jewel!” thought Pere Moche, as he noted the 
tricksy grace of the young harlot, “with a bit of training, 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 


123 

and if she’ll but listen to me, I’ll make something of the 
girl!" 

But this was no time for day-dreams. 

Reassuming an air of gravity and importance, Moche 
went in search of his client, whom he invited to return 
with him to the office. 

Such was the geniality displayed by the old usurer that 
the phlegmatic Englishman, who had come to see him 
with the clear and definite intention of exchanging simply 
and solely the words absolutely necessary to effect the 
repayment he wished to make, allowed himself little by little 
to be drawn into conversation. 

“Moche,” declared Ascott, “here are your twenty-five 
notes of a thousand francs; you will give me a receipt.” 

“Why certainly, most noble sir, with the greatest pleas¬ 
ure.” 

But the old scamp feigned forgetfulness: “You owed me 
twenty-five thousand francs you say; was that the sum?” 
he asked innocently. 

“Twenty-five thousand, yes,” Ascott repeated. 

In reality it was three thousand less, but the old thief 
took good care not to recall the fact! Wishing to complete 
the formalities with a certain solemnity, he went over to 
his strong-box—there was actually next to nothing in it— 
and drew out the one and only article it contained, the big 
ledger to wit. After turning over a number of blank 
leaves, he opened at the page showing Ascott’s name. For 
a long time the business man hung over the columns of 
figures as if making a series of complicated calculations. 
At last he looked up: 

“My excellent client,” he said gravely, “you will excuse 
my contradicting you, but it is not twenty-five thousand 
francs you owe me, it is merely twenty-four thousand, five 
hundred; I am nothing if not honest; I wouldn’t wrong 
you by one single centime.” 

The effect of this declaration was to make the young 
Englishman laugh: “Egad! Monsieur Moche,” he declared, 
“they’ve changed you surely, the thing’s impossible!” 

But the usurer put on his grandest air: “My dear sir, 
strict probity in business is my maxim! I assure you it 
pays, the future is to the men of honour, and it’s just 
because I am conscientious that I benefit by the fidelity 


124 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


of my clients. You yourself, Monsieur Ascott, will cer¬ 
tainly require my services again some day, and you may 
rely on always finding me devoted to your interests.’ , 

“That,” Ascott broke in drily, “I cannot promise; I 
don’t care, I tell you frankly, to have relations with men 
of your stamp. In the last eighteen months I’ve been 
travelling up and down the world, I have changed very 
much, I have money now; I am going to make a home in 
Paris, where I propose to live as a good citizen, spending 
no more than my income.” 

“I’ve been told,” M. Moche interrupted, “that you 
have just bought a delightful little house in the Rue 
Fortuny.” 

“How came you to know that?” demanded Ascott, not 
denying the fact. 

“Pooh!” said Moche, “in the great world of business 
and finance to which I belong, we know pretty well every¬ 
thing that happens.” 

“Really?” said Ascott incredulously, amazed to think that 
so insignificant a person as Moche, a moneylender of a 
low type, could be in any way connected with the big 
and highly respected bankers of the Place de Paris through 
whom he had negotiated the purchase of the house in the 
Rue Fortuny. But Moche was well posted without a 
doubt. By a fresh question he more than ever surprised 
the rich Englishman; he now suggested, speaking! out 
without any reticence or beating about the bush: 

“Doubtless it’s to build a pretty nest for a grand mis¬ 
tress you’ve bought that exquisite house; I have heard 
say that a certain Monsieur Ascott, here present, is head 
over ears in love with a certain Russian princess named 
Sonia Danidoff, with whom he crossed the Atlantic on 
board the Lorraine.” 

Ascott sprang up in extreme agitation. 

“Moche,” he cried, “you think you are a wonderful 
man who knows everything, but you are behind the fair, 
my friend, this time; yes, I admit, I was deeply in love 
with the Princess Danidoff, and I confess I was in hopes 
that in France, after the persevering court I paid her, she 
would at last consent to grant me her favours—but events 
have decided otherwise.” 

“Poor Monsieur Ascott!” murmured M. Moche. Then 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 


125 

he added, casting a side glance at his companion to judge 
of the effect of his words: 

“To think that fool princess prefers a common detective 
to you!” 

Ascott literally flew at the old villain’s throat, and 
shaking him by the shoulder, 

“So then,” he vociferated, “so then, you know every¬ 
thing?” 

Moche smiled quietly: 

“No, not everything,” he protested, “but some little 
matters! ... I take it the Princess Danidoff has no 
more brains than a sparrow, she must be out of her wits 
to like this low-class police spy better than you . . .” 

But Moche suddenly stopped dead: “I beg your pardon, 
but there’s someone knocking,” he exclaimed, and went 
to open the door, pretending to be greatly surprised. 

Throwing out his arms and speaking loud enough for 
Ascott to hear him, he greeted the visitor warmly: 

“Oh, ho! little Nini, it’s you, is it? what a stroke of 
luck! How is my dear sister, your good mother? d’you 
bring me good news?” 

Like a finished actress, Nini stood up on tiptoe, threw 
her arms round the old scamp’s neck and kissed him on 
the brow tenderly, but respectfully. Paulet’s mistress had 
perfectly well understood Pere Moche’s instructions. With 
her modest, decent get-up, she had all the appearance, all 
the charm of youth, freshness and purity, of an honest 
little Paris workgirl, one of those pretty flowers that 
bloom in many a happy home of good, respectable, in¬ 
dustrious working people. The girl was entirely charming 
with her virginal air of innocence and chastity. 

Pere Moche was all smiles as he looked at her; such was 
the old scamp’s artfulness in disguising his true feelings 
that as he stood beside the young girl he offered the very 
picture of a kind, good uncle, proud and happy in the 
beauty of his little niece! The man seemed to forget his 
sordid trade amid these tokens of family affection. Like 
a father proud of his child, he turned to Ascott, who had 
been the interested witness of this intimate and touching 
little scene. 

“Allow me, my dear sir,” he said, “to introduce my 
young niece Eugenie Guinon, a good little workgirl, who 


126 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


makes at this present time her three francs a day. She’s 
barely sixteen, but a tall girl, don’t you think for her age?” 

Ascott bowed to the young girl, muttering to himself: 
“She’s charming, charming!” But Moche, seeming not 
to hear the remark, went on, addressing himself to Nini: 

“Come, don’t be frightened, show you know your man¬ 
ners, say good-day to the gentleman, offer him your hand!” 

Nini dropped her eyes, shyly extended her arm, let 
Ascott imprison her little hand in his nervous fingers, 
which held it a moment or two—perhaps longer than was 
quite necessary. 

But old Moche was anxious, as a good uncle should be, 
not to make his niece waste her time. 

“My dear child,” he declared, smacking a big kiss on her 
blushing cheek, “I’m so pleased to have seen you, but you 
must run away now, for I suppose you’ve work to do, eh?” 

“Yes,” replied Nini in a little soft, childish voice, “I 
must be let off to deliver a bodice for the lady on the third 
floor, and then I’m to match some things at the shops near 
the Bourse. But I came to ask you, dear uncle, to come 
to dinner with us this evening; mamma will be so pleased.” 
Moche never moved a muscle as he listened to the little 
speech Nini Guinon reeled off, looking her straight in the 
eyes and preserving an imperturbable gravity. The old 
brigand was lost in wonder; ah! how well the child played 
her part, so cutely, so cleverly—with her way of never 
looking at Ascott, but all the same contriving to attract 
the Englishman’s admiration. Most certainly he would 
make something of little Nini, never fear! 

The bogus uncle and the pseudo-niece took leave of each 
other prettily. Nini dropped a curtsy as she withdrew, 
while Ascott, with shining eyes, bowed to the ground before 
her. 

Hardly had the charming vision disappeared ere Ascott, 
hitherto so frigid and impassive in demeanor, showed a 
complete change of attitude, marching up and down M. 
Moche’s office in the throes of a feverish excitement. But 
the old scamp pretended not to notice anything, busily 
occupied it seemed in sorting his papers. Suddenly he 
started round; the Englishman was addressing him. “Mon¬ 
sieur Moche, Monsieur Moche!” he called. Then in hesi¬ 
tating accents Ascott went on: 


A STROKE OF GENIUS 


127 

“Monsieur Moche, you have a niece, sir . . . and a 
devilish pretty girl she is!” 

“Well, yes,” the old brigand observed, feigning not to 
understand the young man’s drift, “it’s true she has fine 
eyes, but she’s quite a child yet ... the ‘awkward age,’ 
you know . . . later on, I don’t say, when she’s developed 
a bit; then her good mother and I will find the girl a good 
husband.” 

“Moche,” broke in Ascott, “I want to know your niece.” 

“But,” returned the villain, still with the same affecta¬ 
tion of naivete, “you do know her, didn’t I introduce you?” 

“You are a trifle obtuse, Monsieur Moche, or else a bit 
too clever; it’s not in that sense I wish to know her, not I. 
Your niece is to my taste; at the present moment I have 
no mistress ...” 

The old “advocate” sprang back, feigning the most ex¬ 
travagant indignation: 

“Oh, sir, sir,” he cried, “my dear sir, no, upon my word, 
I could never have believed that of you; do you dare to 
come to me to make such a proposal? Certainly I’m not 
a rich man, and little Nini’s sole and only capital is her 
virtue and her beauty—it is something, it is a great deal 
even—but by the Lord God, I give you my oath, I will 
never, never agree to such a bargain. What do you take 
me for?” 

But Ascott still persisted: 

“I take you, Monsieur Moche, for a man of common- 
sense . . . come now, I or another, what harm can it do 
you? . . . while, seeing it is I-” 

“But, my dear sir, my dear client,” stammered Moche, 
who was acting to perfection despair, embarrassment and 
perplexity, “but, sir, not you any more than another; my 
little niece is still a child, and then, she is an honest girl 
and a good and a virtuous; I wouldn’t for anything in all 
the world . . . Besides, just think of it—I, her uncle!” 

Ascott interrupted the indignant speaker: 

“Come, now, how much?” 

M. Moche seemed overwhelmed by the insult; he sank 
into his armchair and took his head between his hands, 
vociferating in heartbroken tones and a voice choked with 
sobs: 

“Why, what sin have I committed that God lets me be 



128 


THE LONG ARM OE FANTOMAS 


treated in this fashion! I am only a poor advocate, and 
my niece just a humble workgirl, but we are both of us— 
I should say, all three of us, for I mustn’t forget her sainted 
mother—we are all honest folk, worthy of the highest 
respect . . . and we’re expected to . . . God in heaven 
. . . we’re expected to ...” 

Moche left his sentence unfinished, broke off his perora¬ 
tion in mid career, for it had become entirely unnecessary. 
Peeping through his parted fingers, the old rascal had not 
missed a single one of Ascott’s movements. Now the latter, 
leaving the old man to finish out his litany of lamenta¬ 
tions by himself, had suddenly quitted the room, banging 
the door behind him. This was just what Moche was 
hoping for; he calculated that the Englishman, seeing 
nothing could be made of the uncle, was going to try and 
catch up the niece before she had left the house. Treading 
softly, he crept to the door giving on the landing outside, 
the same Ascott had shut a moment or two before, and 
set it ajar. There he stood listening, his face beaming, and 
rubbing his hands. 

Ascott, who had caught sight of Nini Guinon on the floor 
below as he was going downstairs, was leaning over the 
bannister and calling in a voice shaking with excitement: 

“Mademoiselle! pst! Mademoiselle, I say! Mademoiselle 
Eugenie! Listen!” 

Then it was Nini’s clear, flute-like voice, pitched in a 
tone of perfect innocence, that answered: 

“Who’s calling me? Is it you, dear uncle?” 

Ascott, lowering his voice, and now flying three steps 
at a time down the stairs to join the girl below, went on: 

“Why, no, mademoiselle, so to speak, it’s not just ex¬ 
actly your uncle, but it’s I, his friend, the gentleman who 
was in his office just now. Listen, I’ve something to tell 
you; will you let me walk with you?” 

Then the two voices mingled in an indistinct murmur, 
and the pair could be heard leaving the house. 

Moche went back into his rooms with every sign of pro¬ 
found satisfaction, skipping about clumsily like a dancing 
bear in a merry mood. 

“Taken! the bait’s taken fine!” he chuckled, “not a 
doubt of it, here’s another stroke of genius to good old 
Pere Moche’s credit!” 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE WALL THAT BLED 

Elisabeth Dollon was busily engaged installing her be¬ 
longings in the new flat in the Rue de l’Evangile, into 
which she had moved the previous evening. The girl 
possessed a modest stock of furniture of the simplest 
possible sort, but on the upkeep of which she lavished the 
most fastidious care. For her every piece of furniture, 
every article in the rooms, was replete with fond associa¬ 
tions. Since the sinister events that had saddened her 
life, since the tragedies of which she had been the heroine, 
here were the only things she loved, the only objects that 
appealed at once to her memory and her affection. To-day 
she was settling in, bent on arranging an interior that 
should be to her taste. 

It was a Sunday. The weather promised to be magnifi¬ 
cent, and though her windows looked out on the not very 
attractive spectacle of the city gasometers, they yet pos¬ 
sessed the enormous advantage of facing no buildings 
from which inquisitive or offensive neighbours could over¬ 
look her. The day was bright and cheerful, the air pure 
and balmy, and from time to time Elisabeth, choking with 
the dust raised by her domestic operations, would go and 
lean out of the casement to breathe its freshness. She 
was thoroughly enjoying her day of rest; all the week 
she was engaged over the books of a big business house in 
the gloomy district of Aubervilliers. 

Her new home in the Rue de l’Evangile suited her well, 
not only because the rooms were pleasant, but also from 
the fact of its nearness to the scene of her labours. At the 
same time, she had heard within the last few days of a 
chance of finding another post that would suit her still 
better—a position as cashier in a large restaurant in the 
Bois de Boulogne. The girl hoped with all her heart that 
this possibility might become a reality. 

129 


130 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


But presently the girl’s thoughts turned to graver mat¬ 
ters, and her smooth brow was furrowed with lines of 
care and anxiety; her eyes, usually so bright and clear, 
darkened in melancholy reverie. It was the look, at once 
angry and regretful, that appeared on the girl’s face every 
time she remembered Jerome Fandor; whenever she 
thought of the journalist, a sense of disquiet and perplexity 
filled her mind. Was she still in love with him? could it 
be that she still felt a mysterious passion for the man who 
was the author—at least so the unhappy girl was convinced 
—of all her misfortunes, the source of the fatal events that 
had cast a gloom over all her youth? Was it really possible 
that so amiable a young man was the accomplice of Fan¬ 
tomas, if not Fantomas himself? For long she had refused 
to believe it, but henceforth it was impossible to doubt the 
fact; the latest developments, the events that had just 
befallen, the violence offered her on the Boulevard de 
Belleville, confirmed the suspicion beyond all question. 

Dreading further persecutions by the monster that seemed 
relentlessly bent on her undoing, Elisabeth Dollon had 
experienced a deep sense of satisfaction after her change 
of abode, persuaded that an era of peace and tranquility 
was now before her. Nevertheless, in excess of caution, 
she had charged Mme. Doulenques, the concierge of the 
house in the Rue des Couronnes, not to give her new 
address to anyone whatsoever. Moreover, having been 
only eight and forty hours installed in her new apartments, 
she was not expecting anyone to call. 

It was therefore not without considerable perturbation 
that suddenly, about two o’clock that afternoon, the girl 
heard a violent ring at the bell. Who was it? Who could 
be coming to pay her a visit? However, she was somewhat 
reassured on recognizing the concierge’s voice calling to her 
through the door. 

“Mam’zelle, I say, mam’zelle! are you asleep then, or 
are you gone deaf? Here’s a good five minutes we’ve 
been tugging at your bell!” 

On opening the door, Elisabeth Dollon found herself 
confronted not only by the portress, but by a man as well, a 
man of forty or thereabouts, with a pleasant, jovial-looking 
face. He was dressed in a long-skirted white blouse, and 
carried under one arm a half-dozen rolls of paper, while the 


THE WALL THAT BLED 


131 

other hand held a deep paste-pot with a big brush with a 
wooden handle sticking up in it. The workman greeted the 
young girl with an almost imperceptible nod of the head, 
as she unclosed the door. 

“By’r leave, mam’zelle,” he said, “but I’m the painter 
and paper-hanger and I’m come from the landlord to 
paper your place. Seemingly you want it done?” 

“Certainly I do,” the girl answered him, “there’s the 
whole of one room wants fresh papering. But,” she added, 
“I’m not entitled, am I, to choose the paper?” 

The man smiled and nodded. 

“Oh, yes, you are, mam’zelle; and, more by token, 
I’ve brought patterns!”—adding, with a big laugh, “D’you 
suppose I’m going to paper your walls straight away like 
that, in less time than it takes to say ‘knife’; you’ve got 
to choose, then we’ll try how the thing looks, and then, 
when you’ve quite made up your mind, we’ll see about fixing 
up the stuff.” 

The concierge, seeing her presence was no longer required 
and the introductions being duly made, took her departure, 
with a word of excuse. 

“I’ll leave you now,” the good woman said, “and get 
back to my lodge; the fact is, I’ve got ‘company’ this 
afternoon.” 

Elisabeth Dollon led the way into her flat and took the 
paper-hanger straight to the room that was to be decorated. 
It was the furthest from the entrance-door, the one in 
which M. Moche, the landlord, had had the partition 
re-established that had been removed by the previous tenant 
to make the two sets into one. The workman displayed 
no great anxiety to set to work, and began to ferret about 
everywhere and examine the young woman’s furniture in a 
rather inquisitorial fashion. 

“A sweet, pretty place, this of yours!” he observed, 
“quite a little nest for turtle-doves!” 

Elisabeth Dollon forced a smile: “Oh!” she protested, 
“you are mistaken, sir; love is not a happiness I can ever 
hope for.” 

The workman looked at her with a flattering smile. 
“It won’t be your fault, then,” he declared; “a pretty 
girl like you can’t fail . . .” 

But Elisabeth Dollon was not in a mood to listen to the 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


* 3 2 

silly speeches the forward fellow might choose to make her. 
Not wishing, however, to seem too prim and prudish, she 
adroitly turned the conversation: 

“How comes it,” she asked, “you’re working on a Sun¬ 
day?” 

“Lord! mam’zelle,” replied the workman, “because I go 
on the spree Mondays; but that’s neither here nor there, 
we’ve gassed enough, eh? and it’s high time to get to work.” 

The man laid the rolls of paper he had brought with him 
on the floor, and opened them out one by one, asking the 
young lady to make her choice. “D’you prefer the sky- 
blue ’uns, or the pink, or the light green; there’s some of 
all sorts—gay and bright and fresh—like your colour, 
mam’zelle!” 

But “mam’zelle” took no notice of the compliment, and 
fixed her choice on a light blue paper; then, as the paper- 
hanger seemed more inclined to gossip than do his work, 
she announced: 

“I’m going into the next room to put various things in 
order; you’ll call me if you want me presently.” 

Then something occurred to her of a sudden. “Sir,” she 
asked the man, “I have a large picture there, too heavy 
for me to manage; if it’s not troubling you, will you be 
so kind as to fix it up on the wall?”—to which the work¬ 
man agreed readily enough: “With all the pleasure in life,” 
he assured her, “you know all I ask is to make myself 
agreeable.” 

Elisabeth thanked him drily, almost regretting she had 
ever asked the favour. The man’s advances rather fright¬ 
ened her; without quite knowing why, the young girl 
felt suspicious and began to wish the fellow gone as soon 
as might be. Meantime the workman began to make 
hay in the room where he was, a sure sign he was going 
to do something at last. Mademoiselle Dollon withdrew 
into the adjoining room, shutting the door of communication 
behind her. 

But barely a moment or two had passed since the girl 
had left the workman to his own devices when she heard 
a heavy crash followed by a terrific oath from the man’s 
lips! She dashed to the door and was on the point of 
re-entering the room where the paper-hanger was at work, 
when the latter sprang forward and prevented her. 


THE WALL THAT BLED 


133 


“What now, sir!” she cried, “open the door, I say!” 

But from the other side the workman still barred her 
entrance: “Don’t come in, mademoiselle, don’t come in!” 

“But, after all, what’s happening?” she demanded. 

“Nothing to do with you, don’t come in!” 

“But I insist; the thing’s ridiculous, I’m in my own 
house, let me in!” 

Then she heard the strange occupant of the room whence 
the mysterious noise had come turn the key in the lock, 
making any further attempt to force an entrance impossible. 
Elisabeth was more and more terrified. 

“Sir,” she ordered, “I must, I will have this door opened, 
I wish to know what is the matter, what that noise was.” 

But the more excited grew the poor girl, the calmer 
became the workman’s voice. He announced composedly: 
“I will not open the door, I told you so before, do what 
you will!” 

In vain the frightened girl shook the locked door, it would 
not yield; clearly, a mere waste of strength! What could 
be happening within? what was the secret, the tragedy 
perhaps, this man of mystery was resolved at all hazards 
to conceal? 

Driven beyond all patience, Elisabeth Dollon hurried on 
to the landing outside and leaning over the balustrade of 
the stairs, at the top of her voice, that rose shrill in panic 
and fear, called for: “Help! help! help!!” 

Neighbours came running up, surprised and alarmed, 
and presently, the girl’s frantic cries still continuing, the 
concierge, attracted by the uproar, appeared on the scene. 

“Whatever is the matter, my dear?” she demanded— 
and in broken accents Mademoiselle Dollon told the good 
woman her story. The portress was astounded at the 
workman’s extraordinary behaviour; she boldly advanced 
in her turn, to beat with her heavy fist on the closely 
guarded door. 

“Open” she vociferated, “open the door! or there’ll be 
mischief doing.” 

But the calm, slightly sarcastic voice of the individual 
who had locked himself within, replied as before: “I will 
not open.” 

Meantime an impromptu council of war was being held 
among the neighbours gathered on the landing: 


134 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“Go for the police, that’s the only thing to be done; 
it’s a criminal or a madman has locked himself up in there! 
We can’t have that poor young girl left alone at his mercy.” 

The concierge, firing her last round of ammunition, 
threatened the man: 

“If you don’t open the door, they’ll go and fetch the 
police!” 

And the mysterious intruder, in the calmest way, with¬ 
out so much as raising his voice, replied: 

“Yes, go and fetch the police!” 

Some minutes passed, during which this last proposal 
was being put into effect. 

Presently the heavy footsteps of a sergeant of police 
and a constable made themselves heard on the stairs, and 
the two representatives of law and order effected a cautious 
entry into Mademoiselle Dollon’s rooms: 

“It is the police,” they announced themselves; “will 
you open the door; yes or no?” 

They waited a few seconds, then the key turned in the 
lock and the door opened softly a little way. The paper- 
hanger’s face appeared in the aperture and the man, ad¬ 
dressing the sergeant: 

“I will trouble you to step inside, sir,” he said, “queer 
things are happening here, your presence is required,” then 
added, pointing to the constable: “the other gentleman as 
well, perhaps; but no, he might prefer the duty of getting 
the ladies out of the way; it is no sight for women.” 

The calm, authoritative manner of the workman impressed 
the two officers, and the sergeant mechanically ordered 
his subordinate: 

“Make them move on, please!” 

Then the sergeant followed the man into the empty 
room with its four blank walls; the latter led the officer 
straight to the party-wall that had lately been recon¬ 
structed by the landlord’s orders. 

“What do you see there?” he demanded, pointing a 
finger at the white surface. The sergeant looked long 
and curiously at the spot indicated. 

“I see a stain,” he announced at last, “a brown, or is it 
a red stain. What does that mean? . . . Are you poking 
fun at me? might you be wishing to pull my leg, I wonder. 


THE WALL THAT BLED 


135 

Now, to start with, I call upon you to explain yourself, 
why did you refuse to open that door to the young lady 
when she asked you?” 

The workman shrugged his shoulders: “That’s not the 
question in hand,” he said quietly. “What do you think 
of that stain? I ought to tell you it made its appear¬ 
ance immediately after I had made a hole by driving in 
a nail.” 

“I think nothing,” retorted the sergeant, “except that 
all this is nonsensical and incomprehensible balderdash. 
. . .Yes, and that I am going to take you to the station 
for having put the authorities to unnecessary trouble!” 

The workman went on smiling: “Unnecessaryl” he re¬ 
marked; “do you think so?” 

To disabuse the sergeant of such an idea, the other 
picked up a hammer and started hammering the wall 
round the little brown patch; the plaster broke away in 
little flakes that crumbled and fell in dust on the floor, and 
presently, under the rain of blows, the wall itself showed a 
crack. Suddenly a brick tumbled out, and the officer, 
who was watching the operation with eyes of amazement, 
sprang back with a cry of horror, while even the paper- 
hanger himself gave a little start of surprise. 

Behind the plaster, in the inside of the wall, which was 
of considerable thickness, appeared an appalling sight! It 
was a human head, wan and livid, a man’s head with 
features streaked and spotted by the discolorations of 
death! 

The sergeant gazed at the workman in indescribable 
agitation. “What is it?” he asked, “what is it? I call 
upon you to tell me what it is?” 

“It is a dead man, no doubt of that—a dead man they’ve 
walled up in that wall, there can be no doubt of that either!” 

“But in that case,” exclaimed the sergeant, “it must 
be a question of crime, murder! It is a most grave and 
serious matter; the Commissary must be advised!” 

The mysterious workman bowed: “I am entirely of your 
opinion,” he said, “the presence of the Commissary appears 
to me to be indispensable.” 

The sergeant, quite beside himself, ran to the outer door, 
where his subordinate was keeping good guard. 

“Japuzot!” he ordered, “run quick to the station and 


136 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

bring the chief. I have discovered a crime. I have just 
found it is a question of murder!” 

Meantime a confused clamour came from the crowd 
still thronging the landing, at the top of the stairs. Elisa¬ 
beth Dollon, who had remained transfixed with terror in 
the outer room, was for coming to see what was happening. 
Opportunely enough the sergeant stopped her. 

“Stay where you are, mademoiselle,” he ordered, “it is 
not a sight for a young lady; the concierge will bear you 
company.” 

Then, as the gallant officer did not wish the place to be 
invaded by the curious crowd, nor yet to lose sight of the 
dubious individual within, he shut to the outer door of the 
flat. Leaving the people on the landing to their divers 
conjectures, he returned to the gruesome room, where the 
paper-hanger still remained. The latter was seated quietly 
on the floor, for there were no chairs in the room, and had 
lit a cigarette, and now, with the utmost composure, offered 
one to the sergeant. 

“There’s a bad smell,” he remarked, “it’s the corpse; 
will you smoke?” 

The sergeant, dumbfounded by the man’s calmness in 
presence of such tragic happenings, could not manage to light 
his cigarette; his lips were as tremulous as his hands. At 
last, at the third or fourth attempt, he succeeded; but he 
had not taken half a dozen puffs when his sense of dis¬ 
cipline made him suddenly toss his cigarette out of the 
window. A peremptory ring had just sounded at the outer 
door, and the sergeant at once inferred it was the “chief” 
demanding admittance. 

He was right. The Commissary, a little, fat man, with 
an imposing corporation, dashed forward out of breath, 
hustling everybody to right and left, and hurried into the 
ill-omened room. His eyes fell first on the grim head 
that looked out, an image of horror, from the wall where 
it was imbedded. Then he turned to stare at the paper- 
hanger, who without the smallest show of respect towards 
the magistrate, remained sitting on the floor, still smoking 
with imperturbable aplomb. 

The magistrate demanded: “What’s to do here? Whe 
are you? who is the man? how does he come there? 
what have you to say to it, yourself?” 


THE WALL THAT BLED 


137 


“There!” 

“What do you mean by ‘there’}” 

“There,” the paper-hanger concluded his sentence: 
“there’s what you want to know about, before your eyes.” 

The Commissary was boiling with impatience. 

“Why, of course I want to know. What’s been happen¬ 
ing? How was this extraordinary discovery made?” 

The workman, getting to his feet at last: “I would 
point out to you, Monsieur le Commissaire,” he protested, 
“that it is not my business, but rather yours, to find out 
all this! None the less, I am very willing to help you and 
give you my co-operation.” 

Going up to the wall, the workman began, with little 
measured taps, to break away the plaster round the dead 
man’s head. As he worked, he explained: 

“Driving a nail just now into the wall here, I saw drops 
of blood ooze out—a wall that bleeds is not a common 
sight—and before pushing my investigations further, I had 
the police sent for. Directly on your sergeant’s arrival, I 
brought to light the unfortunate man’s head. We have 
waited out of respect for your authority before carrying 
the investigation further. But, now you are come, Mon¬ 
sieur le Commissaire, I don’t think there’s anything need 
prevent our bringing to light the rest of the poor fellow’s 
body.” 

The magistrate gave a twist to his moustache and 
acquiesced. “Proceed with your work,” he directed, and 
the workman took up his hammer again. With a few 
rapid blows, he brought down the rest of the party-wall, 
and the unhappy victim’s body was revealed in its entirety. 
It was a gruesome spectacle! A human being had been 
walled up there. The body had previously been coated with 
quicklime, and the extremities were already burnt away. 
Still, the general aspect of the corpse was more or less 
intact. At the nape of the neck the dead man had a huge 
bruise, now quite black, and forming, at the top of the 
vertebrae, a great ball full of extravasated blood. 

The victim wore a uniform, easily recognized, the familiar 
long, blue frock-coat with silver buttons of the collectors 
in the service of the big credit houses. While the Com¬ 
missary stood motionless, rooted to the spot, the workman 
had gonfe closer, and had cast a rapid glance at the inscrip- 


138 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

tion engraved on the buttons of the uniform. Next moment 
he announced the result of his scrutiny: 

“Comptoir National! . . . there can be no doubt about 
it, Monsieur le Commissaire; the man is the collector of 
the Comptoir National who was murdered, hardly ten days 
ago, in the house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau!” 

“But—but,” stammered the Commissary, “how does 
the body come to be here?” 

The paper-hanger urged suggestively: 

“The house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau where the crime 
was committed and the house in the Rue de l’Evangile 
where we discover the corpse, belong to the same land¬ 
lord, the business agent trading under the name of M. 
Moche.” 

The Commissary started violently: “M. Moche! I 
will have him arrested . . 

“You would be making a mistake!” the paper-hanger 
interrupted the magistrate. 

“Why?” 

“Because, if M. Moche was the murderer, he would 
never have been so imprudent as to hide his victim’s body 
in a house belonging to himself. Besides, there are other 
people to suspect ...” 

“Why? Who?” 

“Gad, sir!” declared the workman, “perhaps the indi¬ 
vidual from whom the bank messenger took up his last 
payment—one Paulet by name. Perhaps, again, the working 
mason who built that wall?” 

“Who was the man?” questioned the Commissary. 

“It is not for me to tell you, but for you to find 
him!” 

The Commissary stood puzzling his brains, while the 
workman went on: 

“Then, again, there’s an individual open to suspicion on 
several counts, the man M. Moche lodged for forty-eight 
hours in his garret in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, who seized 
the opportunity to kill two police-officers who were coming 
to arrest him!” 

“You accuse the journalist, Jerome Fandor, of the bank 
employe’s murder?” 

The workman shrugged his shoulders: “I accuse no¬ 
body,” he protested, “I form hypotheses, and that’s all; 


THE WALL THAT BLED 


139 

I ... my part, in fact, is not to bring accusations, but 
simply . . .” 

The Commissary, exasperated by these repeated sup¬ 
pressions, this reticence on the part of his interlocutor, 
suddenly came up to the workman and clapping both hands 
on his shoulder: 

“This is all mighty mysterious,” he complained, “now, 
for a start, you are going to tell me what you are doing 
here?” 

“You can see for yourself I am a painter and paper- 
hanger, I came to put up papers.” 

“Put up papers! on a Sunday?” 

“Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire.” 

“On a Sunday!—that won’t wash! And besides, you 
strike me as a mighty hard-headed chap. This crime is 
out of all ordinary—you show no surprise. This discovery 
is appalling—you never turn a hair! My lad, you make 
out too well ...” 

“Must a man be an imbecile because he’s a working¬ 
man?” 

The Commissaire checked himself, vexed at his own want 
of tact: “I don’t mean to say that, but still I find you 
a puzzle. You make your appearance here a short hour 
ago, you knock in a nail, the wall bleeds, you knock away 
the plaster covering the masonry and the corpse comes 
to light! You wait for the police to come to explain the 
crime. What have you to say for yourself?” 

“Nothing!” the workman shook his head. 

The Commissary was getting more and more annoyed: 
“I really do not know,” he blustered, “what stops me from 
arresting you.” 

At this, the workman, suddenly assuming a sly look, 
looked his companion up and down: 

“What stops you from arresting me? why, nothing! 
But what will stop your doing it, I’m going to tell you . . ” 

“Tell me then!” 

“This . . .” and the mysterious workman with a quick 
movement, stripped off his blouse, and, beneath his work¬ 
ing garment, he appeared elegantly attired in a dark blue 
suit; he wore a silk neckerchief of a quiet, gentlemanly cut 
and colour, a collar of immaculate whiteness. Removing 
his cap, which till then had been pulled well down over his 


140 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


ears, he displayed a broad, intellectual forehead; his hair 
was of a light blonde, sprinkled with silvery threads at the 
temples. 

Without giving a thought to the intense surprise he had 
created, the soi-disant workman looked the Commissary 
hard in the eyes, as he declared gravely: 

“I am Tom Bob, American detective; a week ago I 
arrived in Paris, having crossed the Atlantic with the 
express purpose of tracking down Fantomas and effecting 
his arrest!”—adding courteously: “Monsieur le Commis- 
saire, I am grateful to circumstances that have afforded 
me the pleasure of making your acquaintance.” 

So saying, the detective—for it was no other— 
made slowly for the door and was about to leave the room, 
when the Commissary called him back: 

“Sir, what is this you tell me? You are Tom Bob?” 

“Do you require proofs of the fact, sir?” 

The magistrate begged pardon: “No, no, certainly not! 
I have no doubt whatever of your identity; indeed I have 
seen portraits of you, I recognise you perfectly well. But 
I wanted to ask you one thing—you think this is a crime 
of Fantomas?” 

Tom Bob threw out his arms in a wide gesture: “With 
Fantomas, can one ever tell? but to be quite frank 
with you, I do not think so; and you may rest assured I 
have my reasons for holding that opinion . . . Monsieur 
le Commissaire, your servant!” 

“Monsieur Bob!” 

“Well, sir? you have something else to say to me?” 

The Commissary, growing more and more embarrassed, 
stammered out: 

“Yes ... no ... in fact ... at any rate .... 
You are going off like that? and leaving me alone? . . . 
But the corpse? . . . and suppose I wanted you?” 

The American drew a card from his pocket-book and 
offered it to the Commissary: 

“I have told you my name; it is Tom Bob; I am 
staying at the Hotel Terminus; if ever French justice has 
need of me, it will always find me at its disposition.” 

The Commissary had not recovered from his general 
state of bewilderment when Tom Bob disappeared. 


CHAPTER XIV 


IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 

“You appear to me, my dear fellow, to be enjoying your¬ 
self just like the fashionable folk, and you are the most 
ungrateful chap on earth to go on talking about The 
cruelty of Fate’ and The stings of Fortune’ and a heap 
of other unpleasant things. After all said and done, what 
is your present outlook? It is the month of May, surely, 
it is ten in the evening, the scene is as pretty as a picture, 
the night warm and fragrant, in one word it is the hour 
when the restaurants in the Bois are crammed with gay 
customers, the hour when it is exquisite to sup beneath 
the budding foliage, to roam the deserted walks, to saunter 
in this magnificent Bois de Boulogne, a park such as no 
other capital in the world possesses. Now, what have you 
been doing? what are you going to do? Halloa, my friend, 
I feel something in your pocket, hard and crumbly at the 
same time, that gives me all the impression of a crust 
of bread. So you’ve been dining in the Bois, my ladl 
And now what do you propose to do? Walk round the 
lake? Evidently you’ve forgotten your carriage and you’re 
going on foot; evidently again there’s every chance that, 
an hour from now, it won’t be a little, stuffy hotel you go 
back to, but the vast caravanserail that is lit by the stars 
of heaven. Still, you’re beginning your evening the same 
as the fashionables—dinner, promenade! And what’s to 
stop you dreaming, like any other innocent, that you are 
destined to-night to wed the fairest princess in all the 
world.” 

The person holding this discourse, so full of a philosophic 
optimism, was no other than Jerome Fandor. The jour¬ 
nalist was talking to himself, having indeed nobody near 
him to whom he could address his moralizings. As he 
had observed, it was about ten o’clock; it was a superb 
night, and taking everything together, the young man 

141 


142 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

would not have been greatly to be pitied for finding himself 
in the Bois de Boulogne and about to take an agreeable 
stroll, if, as again he had remarked, the walk in question 
had not been bound to end in his passing this night in true 
vagabond style in some thicket or other of the park, at 
the imminent risk of being taken up by the police, who 
are invariably very strict with poor devils guilty of the 
heinous crime of not being rich and sleeping out of doors! 

As a matter of fact, the journalist’s condition showed 
no improvement. Since his interview with Tom Bob, he 
had had no occasion to renew acquaintance with the Amer¬ 
ican detective, who, as the object of a hundred flattering 
attentions on the part of the Parisian population, seemed 
to him, all things considered, a decidedly dangerous person¬ 
age to see much of, in view of the close relations maintained 
between him and the authorities. Fandor was now making 
a living by all sorts of queer odd jobs—risking his life 
opening carriage doors on the occasion of grand weddings 
at fashionable churches, of selling evening papers on the 
boulevards, picking up a few sous by casual labour at 
the Halles, just enough to keep body and soul together. 
Nevertheless, he would not have been over and above dis¬ 
quieted by his precarious situation but for the fact that 
public opinion had little by little come round to the pre¬ 
posterous belief that he, Fandor, was, if not Fantomas, 
at any rate one of the chief accomplices of that dangerous 
criminal, now a prisoner in the Sante. This easy, block¬ 
head theory the whole police force had adopted, and every 
journal was proclaiming. 

At a time when Fantomas, with unheard-of effrontery, 
was committing crime after crime, when the most appalling 
murders had grown so common that the public, seriously 
alarmed, were asking themselves if it was not best to pay 
Fantomas the tithes he claimed, at such a time Fandor 
told himself that the view which represented him as the 
guilty party had every chance of finding favour, just 
because it possessed the merit of being simple to the last 
degree! 

“Once let them catch me,” he thought, “and it’ll be 
short shrift and no mercy for me!” 

Accordingly, every night, while waiting events and look¬ 
ing confidently for the result of Tom Bob’s inquiries, 


IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 


H3 


Fandor would betake himself to the Bois, and there spend 
the night, if not in comfort, at any rate, so at least he 
hoped, safe from the perquisitions of the Criminal Investi¬ 
gation officers. 

But what precisely was Tom Bob doing? On what 
lines was he pursuing his investigations against Fantomas? 
As to this, Fandor was very much in the dark. Like the 
general public, he had read in the newspapers of the 
sensational discovery of the bank collector’s body which 
the American detective had succeeded in making in Elisa¬ 
beth Dollon’s flat. Fandor, like everybody else, more 
perhaps than most, for he knew the difficulties that beset 
police researches, had felt a profound admiration for the 
astuteness the American had given proof of on that occasion. 

“No doubt,” Fandor said to himself, “I put him on the 
scent when I told him about Moche, but all said and 
done, I had no information to give him of a sort to lead 
him to the discovery of the victim. The line of reasoning 
that took him to Elisabeth’s, that brought about the finding 
of the ‘wall that bleeds,’ after rousing his suspicions of 
Paulet, this reasoning was purely his own and it is mar¬ 
vellous in all respects.” 

He had even added in his self-communings: 

“If my fine fellow goes on as he has begun, I verily 
believe Fantomas will have found his match!” 

It was the sole gleam of hope still left to Jerome Fandor. 

“Ho there! my man.” 

“M’sieu?” 

“What d’ye mean, strolling about like that? You’re 
a gentleman of means, eh?” 

“No, m’sieu, I’m strolling because . . .” 

“Right oh! D’ye care to earn six sous an hour? you 
know how to hold a shovel?” 

“Yes, m’sieu; yes, I’m willing.” 

“Come with me then!” 

The man who had hailed Fandor, as the journalist was 
finishing his circuit of the lake and had now reached the 
Racing Club enclosure, was evidently a roadman of the 
city of Paris. He wore the flat, silver-laced cap of the 
roads department, he had the heavy gait of an employe 
in that service, and the same good-natured look: 


144 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“If I take you on,” he explained, leading Fandor 
towards the further end of the lake, near the Rond Royal, 
“it’s along of a pressing job, for to-morrow’s fete. I want 
hands.” 

“There’s a fete to-morrow?” Fandor asked. 

“And a smart one, I can tell you, my lad! a fete on the 
lake in honour of I don’t know what good Dutch folks, 
who are paying an official visit to Paris. Seems they’re 
going to take ’em on the water. It’s the municipality 
gives the show. Now I got my notice only just in time; 
so I’ve not been able to get my men together, and I’m glad 
enough to find outsiders like you to give a hand.” 

“What is it you want done?” queried Fandor, delighted 
at the opportunity that offered of earning a few sous. 

“You’ll soon see,” the other replied with a shrug. “It’s 
not difficult and it’s not fatiguing. At this end of the 
road coming from the Pre Catalan—you know, the road 
that joins the one round the lake yonder—we’re removing 
the wire fencing that divides the avenue from the grass 
lawns that border the lake all round. We’re taking up 
the curb of the roadway, too. The turf’s to be dug up 
and laid down again at the sides; in fact, we’re making 
a road, so to say, going straight down to the water’s edge, 
so as the grandees may get out of their carriages at the 
very same spot where they’re to get into the boats. You 
see, don’t you, we couldn’t begin the works yesterday even¬ 
ing, nor yet this morning, nor even this afternoon, because 
that would block the regular road.” 

What cared Jerome Fandor for these details? He fol¬ 
lowed the head roadman and soon, reached the roadway 
that was to be carried on right up to the very edge of the 
lake. There, by the light of acetylene lamps fixed on tall 
standards, a whole crew of labourers was busily engaged. 

“Stand to!” shouted the ganger, “I’m bringing you a 
new chum, find him some easy work.” A second ganger 
came running up, and looked Fandor up and down, then: 

“You’re not a roadman? no? You don’t understand 
gardening, neither? so much the worse! I am going to 
use you for digging up the road then. Come this way.” 
He led Fandor to the middle of the causeway that goes 
round the lake. 

“Look here,” he explained, “so’s to lengthen out the 


IN THE BO IS DE BOULOGNE 


H5 

roadway, we take up the turf of the lawn, using a spade— 
very carefully so’s not to spoil it. We’re going to sand 
over and beat flat and so make a bit of road down to the 
lake; but as the carriages will arrive from the Pre Catalan, 
where tea’s to be served at five o’clock, it’s not worth 
while, you see, to leave the road that circles the lake still 
practicable. Accordingly, we take the turf lifted from 
over there and lay it down all across the lake road. As 
the sods are lifted carefully one by one, it’s only a question 
of laying ’em one beside the other, a drop of water and the 
grass’ll look quite green. That’ll give the impression, not 
that a new way has been specially opened down to the 
lake, but rather that the regular road from the Pre Catalan 
continues straight on to the water’s edge, passing through 
a grass-plot, the ordinary grass-plot, the one we are now 
after extending.” 

Fandor nodded his comprehension and waiting till the 
other had finished, asked: 

“Then my job is to pick up the sods and lay ’em down 
side by side across the road round the lake? so as to 
extend the grass lawn?” 

“That’s the ticket, my lad! and try to work lively, 
won’t you?” 

Fandor had been at work ten minutes when another 
man, an engineer most likely, appeared from behind a 
clump of trees; he was elegantly, yet quietly dressed. 
Hailing one of the gangers: 

“You’ve got men enough now?” he asked. 

The other looked doubtful: “H’m; it’s, a near thing, 
especially as we’ve got to be finished by midnight! I’ve 
had to enlist casual labour—chaps that were getting ready 
for a night under the trees. There’s nothing wrong about 
that, I suppose?” 

“Let me have a look at them!” 

A second or two later the ganger who had enlisted 
Fandor came up to the journalist, who was working away 
very hard and conscientiously, all alone, away from the other 
roadmen. He stared at him for a minute without a word. 

“You don’t know how to work, my man” he said at 
last, “it’s not worth twopence, what you’re doing!” 

“But, sir,” protested Fandor, very much surprised; 
“I’m doing my best.” 


146 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

“Well, then, your best’s not good enough; you’re 
not getting on!” Then, as if coming to a sudden 
decision: 

“No, you’re no good at all and now the chief has been 
jawing me for taking on outsiders. Here, here’s forty 
sous; clear out!” 

There was nothing to be said; moreover, the instant he 
had fingered his forty sous, a fortune in his present plight, 
Fandor lost all interest in the work on hand, good, bad or 
indifferent. 

“Right you are, sir!” was all he said, “I’m off; many 
thanks all the same”—and slipping the two franc piece 
in his pocket, he walked away, pursued by the foreman’s 
scrutinizing and suspicious gaze. 

Scarcely had he disappeared before the engineer—it was 
evidently he who had ordered his dismissal—again appeared 
from among the shadows. He advanced to the shore of 
the lake, nodding familiarly to the men working there, and 
on reaching the water’s edge, gave a shrill, short, sharp 
whistle, then stood quite still, waiting. The night was 
dark, without moon or stars. In a few seconds after he 
had blown his whistle, there showed up on the dark waters 
of the lake a shadowy, fantastic shape. It was indistinctly 
seen at first, but it approached so rapidly that very soon 
it became easy to make out what it was—a boat of rubber, 
a collapsible boat such as explorers use. A man was on 
board, rowing silently and soundlessly. Soon the figure 
grew plainer and its outline could be vaguely discerned, 
the boat was entering the zone illuminated by the acetylene 
flares. 

Then the mysterious rower rose to his feet. What would 
Fandor’s feelings have been, had he been there to see? 
The man who stood in this mysterious craft, who was 
approaching this scene of impromptu road-making, issuing 
from the impenetrable shadows of the lake, was clad from 
head to foot in a suit of black-close-fitting tights. His 
shoulders were draped in a dark cloak, the face was invis¬ 
ible behind a cowl, a black mask! 

A figure of horror, a very incarnation of crime, a form 
of terror without a name! It was the form of Fantomas, 
come in the night to inspect the work of the roadmen 
engaged in preparations for to-morrow’s fete! 


IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 


147 


The hour was divine, the scene fascinating in its charm 
and seduction, at once sumptuous and refined. Nor was 
the setting less delightful, this elegant restaurant, this 
favourite haunt of fashion, where the invited guests one 
and all belonged to the wealthy aristocracy of Paris; supper 
was drawing to an end, the talk grew more brilliant than 
ever, the music was ravishing, the women lovely, the per¬ 
fumes intoxicating, the flowers a feast for the eyes! No 
less than everything else the mysterious hues of the foliage, 
a weird tint of blue painted by the gleam of the electric 
lights, contributed to lend this corner of the Bois a look 
of unreality, a fairylike aspect like some fantastic scene on 
the stage, charming, delicious, entrancing! 

This evening the place was even more brilliantly lighted 
than usual. The papers had made much of the coming 
festivity; in celebration of a treaty of Commerce signed 
the previous week, the English Ambassador was paying 
this compliment to his colleague the Ambassador of Russia. 
Dinner was served at separate little tables. It was past 
midnight, the meal was almost over and conversation was 
more animated than ever. 

Apart from the other guests, at a table set at a distance 
from the others, sat dining quite alone a very beautiful 
woman, of an irreproachable elegance and one who, better 
still than Sonia Danidoff, could claim the rank of Royal 
Highness. The waiters named her to each other with 
baited breath: “Her Highness the Grand Duchess Alex¬ 
andra.” It was in fact the haughty great lady, friend of 
Frederick Christian IV, King of Hesse-Weimar, the proud 
lady whom Juve and Fandor, and they alone, knew to be 
in reality the enigmatic Lady Beltham, the mistress of 
Fantomas! 

And truly, if some observer had chosen to watch the 
pretty woman in question, he would have shuddered to 
note with what a look, at once tragic and distraught, full 
of hate and violent animosity, she gazed at her gay and 
laughing neighbours, the guests of the Ambassadors of 
England and of Russia. It would seem indeed that the 
grand duchess had some secret motive for wishing to remain 
unseen by these members of Parisian society. Not content 
with choosing a remote table enveloped in deep shadow, 
she had likewise extinguished the little electric table lamp 


148 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

in front of her; the light thrown by the surrounding lamps 
was sufficient for her to see by. All through her meal 
the grand duchess sat pale and mute, barely answering the 
maitre d’hotel who hovered near, eager to supply her 
wants, her eyes fixed on the other diners, from whose 
tables came burst after burst of merry laughter. 

Already the grand duchess was thinking of taking her 
departure when of a sudden, as if drawn by some surprising 
vision, she half sprang up, then with a quick recoil threw 
herself back into the shadows, as though terrified and yet 
more anxious than before to shun observation. Bowing 
low in courteous greeting to one and another acquaintance, 
a man of slim, well-knit figure and elegant bearing had 
joined the circle formed by the official guests. His name 
passed from lip to lip, and he was welcomed with a chorus 
of friendly and admiring exclamations, sometimes marked 
by just a touch of raillery: 

“Torn Bob! why how late you are. What, have you 
been hunting till this hour of the night for your strange 
enemy, the ever evasive Fantomas?” 

But while the sound of that dreaded name still broke 
the stillness of the summer evening, while the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra, Lady Beltham in reality, still shud¬ 
dered to hear her lover’s name pronounced, gaiety quickly 
resumed its sway among the other guests. 

“My dear,” remarked a tall young woman, a trifle 
eccentric in appearance and manner, a Russian who, re¬ 
port said, had been involved in a highly diverting scandal, 
“My dear, you are sad?” But the Princess Sonia Danidoff, 
to whom the words were spoken, shook her head with a 
smile: 

“No, you are mistaken; I am not sad, but I am 
thinking.” 

“Thinking of what?” 

At the little table where the two pretty women were 
conversing, there sat, among several attaches of the Em¬ 
bassies, the wealthy young Englishman, Mr. Ascott, who 
now followed up the question addressed to the beautiful 
princess. 

“Princess,” he said, “we cannot long allow you to remain 
so self-absorbed, so serious, on so lovely a night as this 
and at so delightful a fete.” 


IN THE BO IS DE BOULOGNE 


149 

A smile of raillery curled Sonia Danidoff’s lips; with a 
touch of impatience, a suspicion of mockery, she replied: 

“So, sir, if you can prevent my being sad, for it appears 
I am sad, I gladly give you my permission to try. But 
I am very much afraid you will find it difficult to make me 
merry.” 

“That depends,” returned the Englishman; “tell us, 
if it may be, the wish you have in your mind. All here, 
I make bold to say, are gallant gentlemen. At the risk 
of attempting the impossible, we will use every effort to 
give it satisfaction. I even notice by the smile on my 
friend Tom Bob’s face, and you know a police-officer 
rarely smiles, he admits that to please you nothing is 
impossible. It is a guarantee that, if we fail in our desire 
to banish your depression, it will be no fault of ours.” 

The Princess Danidoff was opening her lips to reply 
when her friend stopped her. 

“Gentlemen,” she said, “I think Sonia will forgive me 
for my indiscretion, if I betray the secret of her melancholy; 
Sonia Danidoff, kinswoman of the Tsar, enormously rich, 
pretty enough to make all the women on this earth jealous, 
Sonia Danidoff, good sirs, is preoccupied simply and solely 
because she is . . . bored! Nay, do not protest; it is 
not that your society has displeased her! But Sonia, I 
know, finds life flat, stale and unprofitable; Sonia dreams 
of a great passion, of romantic love, such love as is hardly 
to be found in our times, such as she has hardly a chance 
of inspiring. And so Sonia is profoundly homesick. Now 
you are fairly warned!” With a wave of her slim, white 
hand: “Never believe that scatterbrain,” the princess pro¬ 
tested; “I am not so . . . romantic.” 

A burst of laughter had greeted the statements of the 
young Russian; now all were listening to a charming, an 
exquisite Neapolitan boat-song'. 

But Tom Bob’s attention was not with the music. Quit¬ 
ting his seat—it was nearly two in the morning and the 
men were trifling with Egyptian cigarettes—he had come 
to lean over the back of the fair princess’s chair. 

“Princess,” he was saying, “why do you refuse to seek 
a love a little more original, which means a little more 
real, than that commonly met with? I do not think that 
so absurd a quest.” 


150 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

In an instant those wondrous eyes of the Princess Sonia 
Danidoff’s lit up, shining with a deep, soft radiance. She 
half turned round to look at the speaker, that amazing 
Tom Bob whose doughty deeds filled the Press, that wily 
detective, that hero. 

“Sir,” she made answer, “you speak strangely. So 
you believe in love?” 

“I do, madam,” replied the American, “and the more 
profoundly, and it may be the more sadly, as this very- 
evening I have been a witness of the birth of two senti¬ 
ments, one a half indifferent attraction, the other a genuine 
passion.” 

“What reason for sadness in that, sir?” 

“Every reason, for I am much afraid that these two 
sentiments will end in sadness and disillusionment.” 

For a moment the princess sat silent, puzzled, hesitating. 
At last she spoke with an affectation of haughtiness such 
as every woman knows how to assume: 

“I do not understand you very well, sir. You speak in 
riddles. I am a Russian, you an American. I beg you 
use some other dialect than Parisian ‘blague’; be more 
explicit.” 

With a quick glance, Tom Bob made sure there was 
no listener to pay heed to his talk with the fascinating 
princess. The Neapolitan singers had been succeeded by 
a bevy of quaint step-dancers, whom all the company was 
attentively watching. 

Reassured on this point, Tom Bob, intoxicated perhaps 
by the beauty of the night, perhaps crazed by Sonia 
Danidoff’s loveliness, charmed no doubt by the sympathy 
she had never ceased to lavish on him throughout this 
after-dinner talk, resolved to burn his boats: 

“You do not understand, madam,” he resumed, “you 
surprise me! I imagine you have not failed to notice the 
marked attentions, to say no more, paid you by our com¬ 
mon friend, M. Ascott? Oh! never deny it, madam! 
To-night, as indeed he does habitually, M. Ascott has made 
the most determined efforts to win your favour.” 

There was almost a touch of mockery in the words, and 
Sonia Danidoff was too quick-witted not to catch the 
other’s drift. 

“It would seem,” she said, “these efforts do not strike 


IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 


151 

you, sir, as having been crowned with success! you think 
my conquest is not an accomplished fact yet?” 

“I do not think, madam ... I hope” 

And with these two little words which meant so much, 
which were equivalent to the most formal of declarations, 
Tom Bob, like a well-advised suitor, aware that a man 
must never demand an answer but always wait till it is 
offered, made his bow to the princess and walked away. 

“I am going to call your carriage,” he said. 

The company was, in fact, rising from table; it was 
growing very chilly and the time was come to think of 
quitting the Bois for the city. Everywhere the guests 
were exchanging farewells, then the women of fashion, 
escorted by their cavaliere servente, made for their elegant 
broughams or sumptuous automobiles. All were leaving, 
and leaving all at the same time, to return together as far 
as the barrier of the Porte Dauphine, when the final adieux 
would be exchanged. 

All together? No, not so. There was one fair lady, at 
any rate, who did not intend to make one of the merry 
crowd. Indeed, the Grand Duchess Alexandra showed 
not the slightest desire to quit the table at which she had 
sat from the very beginning of the evening, isolated, sullen 
almost! She had never ceased her watch of the official 
guests, and above all had not failed to mark the flattering 
attentions and manifestations of sympathy lavished every¬ 
where on Tom Bob. Now her eyes were fixed askance 
on the Princess Sonia Danidoff, the acknowledged queen 
of the festivity, as she took the arm the detective offered. 
The white teeth of the Grand Duchess Alexandra were 
nervously biting her lip. The noble lady was doubt¬ 
less thinking with acute agitation how she was the mis¬ 
tress of Fantomas and that this hero of the hour was the 
very same man who had sworn to bring her lover to the 
scaffold! 

But it was high time to be gone, and the grand duchess 
summoned her chasseur. 

“Call up my car,” she ordered, “but tell my chauffeur 
he is carefully to avoid returning with the rest of the 
company; he is to drive by the less frequented roads. I do 
not care to be compelled to greet all these folks, who r 
luckily, have so far neither seen nor recognized me.” 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


l S 2 

The menial bowed and went his way, but he was back 
again next minute. 

“Your Highness’s chauffeur,” he said, “has to inform your 
Highness that an accident has happened to the car; he is 
busy repairing the damage, but it will take a good half-* 
hour. Your Highness does not wish me to go for a hired 
carriage?” 

The Grand Duchess Alexandra, or rather Lady Beltham, 
seemed to hesitate a few moments. She cast a dark and 
venomous look of suddenly awakened anger in the direction 
of the last lingering guests mounting their vehicles, then 
quickly: 

“No, I am in no hurry. Tell the chauffeur to do the 
repairs, and come and tell me when all’s ready”—and the 
footman vanished once more. 

“You are infinitely obliging, madam, to offer to drive 
me back to Paris. Instead of sitting sad and solitary in a 
hired conveyance, it is no small happiness for me to journey 
a few minutes in your company and enjoy, with no unbear¬ 
able third party present, the favour you are so amiable 
as to show me.” 

In fact, as Sonia Danidoff was on the way to her limou¬ 
sine, hanging on Tom Bob’s arm, the princess had observed 
that the latter, having no conveyance of his own, would 
be obliged to get back to Paris alone as best he might, 
and there and then she had made the offer: “Come, won’t 
you get into my car? You can drive with me to the house, 
then they’ll set you down at your destination.” 

Tom Bob, needless to say, jumped at the offer, delighted 
to seize the opportunity of so charming a tete a tete. 
And soon the princess and he were talking amicably to¬ 
gether, while their car sped through the deserted Bois 
along the road, lit up for a dozen yards ahead by the glare 
of the acetylene lamps on the bonnet. They talked, let it 
be said, of indifferent subjects, the American carefully 
avoiding any reference, however casual, to the declaration 
of love he had ventured to make a moment before, and 
Sonia feigning not to have understood his meaning. 

“You have a wonderfully fine car, madam,” observed 
Tom Bob, as the princess’s chauffeur, making a clever turn 
and taking advantage of the exceptional speed of the 


IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 


153 

car, took the head of the procession formed by the different 
cars. We shall be there in a few seconds; I shall be sorry 
for that, madam.” 

“You . . ” 

But at the very instant Sonia Danidoff was in act to 
reply, a cry of horror and anguished fear escaped her lips, 
while for his part, Tom Bob could hardly restrain a 
startled oath. 

What had happened? Impossible for the occupants 
of the cars to perceive in the bewilderment of the moment! 
What blunder had the chauffeur made to provoke the 
accident? Suddenly, without any diminution of speed, 
without even any application of the brakes to slow up 
the pace, the four first cars following the road from the 
Pre Catalan had plunged into the lake of the Bois de 
Boulogne! 

Fortunately the lake is not very deep. Still, the danger 
was serious that confronted those who found themselves 
thus involved in so sudden a shipwreck. The women were 
muffled in their cloaks, the men hampered with their 
great coats; moreover, the cars had been pitched almost one 
on top of the other, and cries of terrified bewilderment rose 
on all sides. 

Inside Sonia’s limousine events followed each other with 
dramatic swiftness. Tom Bob, a marvel of presence of 
mind, a miracle of coolness, had not lost his head for an 
instant. The moment the princess broke off to scream, 
the moment he felt the ground slip from under the wheels, 
he realized what was happening. In a flash he concluded 
at first that the princess’s driver, deceived by the darkness, 
had misjudged his turn, and cried out instinctively: 

“We are over.” 

But the limousine itself was struck heavily by the car 
behind, and the detective and the princess were thrown 
forward and bruised against the sides. Then the whole 
horror of the situation was revealed. Sonia had fainted, 
and the dark, surging waters of the lake were pouring into 
the vehicle in icy torrents through the broken windows. 
The limousine was sinking! 

“Damnation!” roared Tom Bob; then, quick as light¬ 
ning, gripping the princess by one arm, he forced open 
the door in spite of the weight of water and struck out. 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


154 

He was a powerful swimmer, and in a few seconds more he 
and his precious burden had reached the bank of the lake. 

There, the wildest confusion reigned. The first four 
cars had plunged in one on top of the other; fortunately 
those following, being a short distance behind, had been 
able to brake and pull up in time. At the cries of the 
drivers all with one accord had sprung to the ground, and 
were now asking names, counting numbers, uttering 
exclamations of surprise and fear. The panic was 
indescribable. 

It was indeed a most lucky chance there was no fatality 
to deplore. Sonia’s car, the first in the line, was as a matter 
of fact the only one that, by reason of its speed, had rolled 
far enough into the lake to be half submerged. The drivers 
of the vehicles behind, seeing the accident, had sheered 
off to one side, had more or less jammed down their brakes 
and, thanks to their reduced speed, had been able, not 
indeed to avoid the disaster altogether, but at any rate to 
diminish its ill consequences. The cars had come to a 
stand on the very verge of the water. 

Help was soon organized, and brave men sprang into 
the lake to the rescue. Half an hour after the catastrophe, 
it could be said for certain that it would have no very 
serious sequel, apart of course, from any effects that might 
ensue on the violent agitation all had experienced, and the 
painful bruises some of these “shipwrecked mariners” had 
received. Only the Princess Sonia Danidoff, imprisoned in 
a vehicle that had actually sunk, was ever in positive danger 
of death; and so, when the first bewilderment was over, it 
was round the young Russian lady that the crowd gathered 
thickest, questioning and congratulating. 

Meanwhile Tom Bob, his brow knit in anxious thought, 
had drawn some of the men apart and was demonstrating 
to them the causes of the accident. 

“It is beyond belief!” he declared, “ . . . just look over 
yonder! ... the thing was a criminal attempt! They 
have masked the turn in the road by laying down the 
bogus grass lawn over a length of ten yards, and extended 
the road itself in a straight line right up to the waterside. 
The footway is cut through! the wire fencing removed! 
Why, they have even chalked over the rammed earth to 
make it look as white as the road! For sure, no blame 


IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 


155 

attaches to the chauffeur; in the glare thrown forward by 
the lamps he was bound to make a mistake; he could not 
possibly see the trap laid for him, and so, quite naturally, 
he drove straight on till the final crash came.” 

Tom Bob was going to say more when suddenly a cry 
burst on the silence of the night, a cry of stupefaction, 
of tearful distress. The detective flew to a group standing 
round the Princess Danidoff, who still lay on the ground 
inhaling a restorative. 

“What . . . what is it? what is happening now?” 

The English Ambassador replied to the American detec¬ 
tive’s question. 

“It is atrocious,” he cried, “the Princess Sonia Danidoff 
has just discovered she has been robbed of articles of very 
considerable value.” 

For the moment the American stood stock still, as if 
paralysed with amazement. 

“What,” he exclaimed, “what is that you say?” 

“I say, my good sir,” returned the Ambassador, “that 
the Princess Sonia has been stripped of all her jewels, all 
her jewels—do you hear what I say?—rings, bracelets, neck¬ 
laces, hair ornaments. Some hundreds of thousands of 
francs gone!” 

In his bewilderment Tom Bob could only repeat himself: 
“But the thing’s past belief; it’s impossible! When did 
it happen? and how?” 

He darted to the princess’s side, while the Ambassador, 
turning to a young attache, finished what he was saying 
for his benefit. 

“For my part,” he declared, “I consider the whole 
catastrophe had but one object—this theft! It must have 
been done while the princess lay in a faint and Tom Bob 
had left her to help in saving life. Tom Bob, police- 
detective as he is, never saw the wood for the trees!” 

The attache nodded: “You are doubtless right, sir; but 
who can have organized this daring, this audacious plot?” 

It was in a hushed voice, almost in a whisper, that the 
Ambassador made answer: 

“Who? Egad! I think there is only one man in all 
the world . . . and you know his name!” 

“Fantomas?” 

“Yes, Fantomas.” 


156 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

Already on every lip the dread name was being repeated, 
the name of horror and of blood, the name that alone could 
make credible the incredible reality, that could make it 
seem possible, that could account for it. 

“Fantomas! Fantomas! he and no other must have 
planned all this!” 

And through the night, more grim than ever the three 
tragic syllables re-echoed, spreading consternation— 
Fantomas! 


CHAPTER XV 


IN A PRIVATE ROOM 

M. Moche was in a generous mood that morning. He now 
beckoned to the waiter of the drinking shop where he sat 
with a companion, the apache known by the nickname of 
the “Gasman,” and ordered a bottle of wine and glasses 
to be set on the table. But the old man had certainly not 
summoned this “Gasman” to meet him merely for the 
pleasure of standing the young ruffian a drink. For a good 
quarter of an hour they had been hobnobbing together, 
and the old business agent had been engaged in explaining 
to his man the particular service he required of him. To 
start with, indeed, and by way of preliminary to insure 
the confidence and good will of his ally, Pere Moche, as he 
shook hands on saying good-morning, had slipped between 
the “Gasman’s” gnarled fingers a nice little bank note for 
fifty francs, which the apache, nothing if not practical, 
had instantly pocketed, prepared to learn later on what he 
would have to do in return, or even to refuse to take on 
the job if he did not fancy it. 

When the bottle was half empty, Moche came back to 
the business in hand. 

“Then it’s settled,” he asked, “we may count on you?” 

The apache pushed his chair back, leant his great body 
far across the table, rested his head between the palms of 
his hands and looking hard at the old business man: 

“That depends,” he announced in a decided tone. 

“What d’ye mean?” asked Moche in surprise. 

The “Gasman” repeated: “That depends. Question is 
who’re we working for? For my part, since all these here 
to-dos, you’ll understand, I’m beginning to be a bit off. 
Fantomas’ gang and me being in the know with ’em, that's 
all very fine and large; but sure as I’m here drinking at 
your expense, the thing can’t go on, and it’s bound to 
end badly.” 

“Don’t you worry about that, my man; th'^ business 
i57 


158 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

is my little game and nobody else’s. Fantomas has nothing 
to do with it. And what’s more, let me tell you, Fantomas 
don’t like folks prying into his business, whoever they 
may be; cute chap as you are, Mr. ‘Gasman,’ you’ll be 
getting yourself into trouble, if you poke your nose in 
there.” 

“Right oh!” agreed the apache; “let’s talk about 
your business then instead!” 

“Well then,” resumed Pere Moche, “you quite under¬ 
stand I count on you implicitly for to-night. Now there 
must be two of you for the job, so stir your stumps this 
afternoon and find a bully boy at a loose end. Who are you 
going to take, eh?” 

The apache thought a moment, twisting his long 
moustache, then suggested: 

“I don’t see anyone hardly but ‘Bull’s-eye/ you know 
who I mean, who’d just do . . 

Moche approved the selection: “That’s the ticket, go 
and fix it up with your friend; he’s a good cuss and no 
white liver,” he grinned. 

But Moche grew grave again: “Don’t forget to bring 
along all the properties—some good strong rope, and of 
course a handkerchief, you know, to make a gag—part of 
your stock in trade all that, eh, ‘Gasman’?” 

Then, discovering it was half past eleven, and he was 
behind time, M. Moche shook the apache hurriedly by the 
hand and vanished. With rapid strides the old usurer made 
his way down the Rue de Belleville and so to the line of 
the exterior boulevards, where he hailed a cab, telling the 
man to drive him to the Silver Goblet , a restaurant on the 
Place de la Bastille. 

What new scheme could the dubious advocate of the 
Rue Saint-Fargeau be meditating now? What was the 
shady enterprise he was planning, for which he needed 
the co-operation of two notorious apaches from Menil- 
montant like the “Gasman” and “Bull’s-eye”? On arriving 
at his destination, M. Moche took the landlord on one 
side; the latter seemed an old acquaintance. 

“I want you to keep me for to-night,” he whispered in 
his ear, “the little pink room; I shall be coming to dine 
there about eight o’clock with some swell clients; put on 
a man who can hold his tongue to wait.” 


IN A PRIVATE ROOM 


159 


The restaurant keeper bowed respectfully. 

“You can trust to me, Monsieur Moche, you shall have 
what you want, and you shan’t be disturbed. Anyway, 
the season’s drawing to a close and we’re hardly serving 
any more dinners in private rooms; you may count on 
having the whole floor practically to yourselves.” 

The old fellow was entirely satisfied by what he heard, 
and at once took his departure, striding fast along the 
streets and whistling a cheerful march tune. 

“Dress-coat, smoking jacket? what is monsieur going 
to wear this evening?” 

“Neither, John; lay out my lounge coat.” 

“You are not going out then, sir, and you have not 
anybody asked to dinner?” 

Mr. Ascott stopped in the middle of arranging his tie; 
and turning to his man, said sharply: 

“I am not dining at home, and I ask you for my lounge 
coat, that’s all.” 

John, while obeying orders, still wore a scandalized air: 

“Excuse my speaking like this, sir, but I cannot help 
telling you, sir, that for some days now you have been 
neglecting your personal appearance, sir. What, you are 
going abroad, sir, in a lounge suit and dining out in such 
a costume? In New York or in London, you would never 
think of such a breach of etiquette.” 

Ascott interrupted his man-servant’s flow of words with 
a look of weary discouragement: 

“I shall do just what I choose, John; and let me tell 
you, it’s only out of consideration for your age and the 
years you have been with my family I don’t reprimand 
you severely for the liberties you take.” 

The man dropped his eyes and with a chagrined air: 

“I beg pardon, sir, it was only the interest I take in 
you, sir, made me say what I did.” 

Ascott let the matter drop. Presently, his hands very 
busy adjusting a carnation in the button-hole of his coat, 
he asked: 

“The Princess Danidoff did not ring up on the ’phone 
this afternoon.” 

“No, sir; in fact it is several days now we have had 
no news of the princess.” 


i6o THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

“Well, John,” grunted Ascott, turning stiffly and facing 
the man, “I am pleased to think it will go on so for a long 
time; I’ve had enough of the Princess Sonia Danidoff, she’s 
an ungrateful coquette. God knows how ready I was to 
love her, how gladly I would have devoted my life to her 
service, but she is crazy, crazy for another man, ... so 
much the worse for me! But there, that’s her look 
out . . .” 

John looked his approval. 

“Quite right, sir; these great ladies always give more 
trouble than they’re worth, and if I might offer you a piece 
of advice, sir . . .” 

“Well, out with it.” 

“Well, it would be just to take for mistress one of those 
pretty actresses there’s so many of in Paris and who would 
ask nothing better, or else get to know a nice, good little 
girl, a gentle and modest young thing who would love you 
tenderly . . .” 

Ascott burst into a loud laugh. 

“ ’Pon my word, John, you’re in a prophetic vein to¬ 
day, ha, ha! Who tells you I’m not going to follow your 
advice to the letter?” 

“Why, sir, do you know some young girl in society?” 

“In society, h’m! not high society certainly . . . but 
one that is honest and peaceable and sincere; yes, perhaps 
I do, and I’m beginning to think even I’m pretty deep in 
love.” 

John rubbed his hands in naive satisfaction; he ven¬ 
tured: “You must tell me about it, sir.” 

But next minute Ascott checked himself and his face 
resumed a stern look full of haughty reserve. 

He was ready to go. “John, hand me my hat.”— 
“Very good, Sir.”—“My stick.”—“Here it is, sir!” 

“John, I shall not be back perhaps till late at night— 
perhaps not at all; no need to sit up for me.” 

“Very good, sir . . . good-night, sir!” 

“Good-night, John.” 

Seated at the back of the omnibus office in the Place 
de la Bastille, two persons were conversing in low voices; 
they were Pere Moche, wearing, as always, his everlasting 
top hat with the mangy nap and draped solemnly in his 


IN A PRIVATE ROOM 


161 


long frock-coat, and little Nini Guinon, modestly clad in 
a navy blue skirt barely reaching to the ankles and a straw 
hat trimmed with wild flowers. To look at the pair you 
would have taken them for people of the small shop-keeper 
class—the father a worthy business employe, the daughter 
a school-girl, hardly out of the Convent. No one would 
ever have dreamt he had before him the old usurer of the 
Rue Saint-Fargeau, comrade and accomplice of the worst 
apaches of the district, and least of all that the modest 
maiden he saw there was a vulgar street-walker, a common 
murderer’s mistress, seduced and ruined long ago, for all 
her tender years. 

Pere Moche was grumbling sourly: 

“The thing’s disgusting. Since they did away with the 
correspondmce tickets, the omnibus offices are getting fewer 
and fewer and less and less used. I had the devil’s own 
job to find just this one here to arrange to meet you at.” 

“But why,” demanded Nini, teasing the old man, “why 
couldn’t you let me join you at the pub on the corner there? 
We could have swigged a half-pint or so then in the mug’s 
honour.” 

M. Moche started, and putting on a grieved look, began 
to scold the too outspoken Nini—albeit he felt a strong 
inclination to laugh all the while. 

“You slut, will you never be serious? You spend your 
time humbugging, trying to frighten me, you do. I’m all the 
while in a stew you’ll let out a big ’un before him ...” 

Nini completed the old advocate’s sentence for him: 

. . A big ’un that’ll make him see I’m not just exactly 
an angel come down from heaven with her crown of orange 
blossom on her head, all ready to fall into his arms; eh, 
Pere Moche, isn’t that what makes you sweat?” 

But Moche knew better; he gave the child a friendly 
tap on her rosy cheek: “No, not really, mind you; I’m 
not a bit afraid, you’re a deal too artful to give yourself 
away,” and looking admiringly at the girl, he added: 

“It wouldn’t take much more to take me in, too, with 
your modest, virtuous air, and those great innocent eyes 
of yours!” 

But next moment M. Moche turned serious. 

“Attention!” he cried, “steady! here comes the pigeon; 
stand by to blush, niece!” 


162 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“Never you fear, dear uncle,” replied Nini, biting her 
lips not to burst out laughing. 

Thereupon Ascott appeared at the door of the omnibus 
office; the young Englishman might have stepped out of 
a bandbox, smart, elegant, freshly shaved, and carrying 
in his arms an enormous bunch of flowers! 

The complicated plot arranged some days beforehand 
by old Moche seemed to be working out under the most 
favourable auspices. He had introduced his bogus niece 
to the rich young Englishman at a highly opportune 
moment, just when Ascott, chagrined at having paid 
assiduous court to the Princess Sonia Danidoff, only to 
see the latter prefer to himself the latest recruit to her 
band of admirers, the American stranger, the detective, 
Tom Bob, who, from the first moment of his arrival in 
France, had worn in all men’s eyes an aureole of glory and 
success. Moved less by love than by a sort of obstinacy. 
Ascott had indeed striven to contend against this adversary, 
but events had occurred so rapidly and so much in favour 
of his rival that the wealthy Englishman, in spite of being 
the first in the field and the first accredited suitor for the 
princess’s hand, had been forced to take second place. 
For was it not, in fact, this same Tom Bob again who, 
forty-eight hours earlier, had rescued the unfortunate Sonia 
Danidoff from a terrible and almost certain death? Evi¬ 
dently the detective had not succeeded in saving the prin¬ 
cess’s jewels, but he had saved her life, and swore to 
protect her against the mysterious and terrible attacks of 
the ever elusive and enigmatic scoundrel, who seemed 
especially bent on her destruction. 

Wounded in his self-love and baulked in his passion, the 
young Englishman had quickly come to his senses, and 
this the more readily from the fact that, as his love for 
Sonia Danidoff cooled more and more, he felt his heart 
more and more stirred and charmed by a youthful passion 
for the pretty child he supposed to be niece of the old 
moneylender, the grotesque M. Moche. Moreover, startled 
by the indignant refusal his first audacious proposal had 
provoked, Ascott had immediately realized that this was 
not the right way to deal with the old business man. 
In fact, when he accompanied Nini on her leaving the 
house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, he had also seen pretty 


IN A PRIVATE ROOM 


163 

clearly that the latter, good, obedient girl as she was, 
must needs entertain the highest respect for her uncle. 
So he had wisely told himself how desirable it was in the 
first place to win the old man’s favour in order to secure 
the child’s good graces. 

The young Englishman accordingly invited M. Moche 
to lunch, lunch for two, tete-a-tete. Moreover, despite the 
instinctive repulsion he felt for the fellow, he found himself 
forced to admit, before the meal was over, that he was 
after all a cheerful boon-companion, not lacking in wit 
and possessed of a store of racy anecdotes well calculated 
to dispel his melancholy. Adroitly enough, Ascott brought 
the conversation round to the subject of M. Moche’s little 
niece, displaying an interest in the child’s future, and he 
deemed himself more than clever when, after endless beat¬ 
ing about the bush, he finally succeeded in persuading 
Pere Moche to dine with him and bring little Nini with 
him one evening soon. 

Poor fellow, he little dreamt he had to do with a man far 
cleverer than himself, and that the favour he had obtained 
at the cost of so many difficulties was really and truly but 
the consummation of the plot conceived by the Machiavel¬ 
lian business agent and his abominable little accomplice. 

. . . Thus Ascott arrived to the minute at the rendezvous, 
in the omnibus office in the Place de la Bastille at 7.30, his 
heart in his mouth, his mind in a joyous tumult, his arms 
full of flowers, all for the woman towards whom he now 
began to feel a genuine and sincere affection! 

The merry little dinner was drawing to an end. Old 
Moche had positively sparkled with wit throughout the 
meal, but most of the time it was simply trouble wasted, 
for Ascott hardly listened to a word. Moche sat facing the 
two young people, who, as if by inadvertence, had taken 
their places on a narrow divan, so that as the festivity 
proceeded they were perpetually coming into casual con¬ 
tact with each other. At first the young man had dis¬ 
creetly kept his distance, but little by little, growing 
bolder under his senior’s indulgent eye—the old man 
seemed to be getting tipsy—the lover drew nearer to his 
charmer. From time to time he would squeeze her hand 
under the table or throw an arm around her waist. The 


164 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

child looked demure and a trifle startled, affecting to be 
embarrassed, sometimes even shocked, but at the same time 
casting occasional sidewise glances at the rich Englishman 
that were full of encouragement and spoke of passion only 
held in check by maiden modesty. 

Ascott, entering more and more into the spirit of the 
thing, kept on replenishing his guests’ glasses with cham¬ 
pagne, hoping to intoxicate old Moche altogether and make 
the girl sufficiently tipsy to prove less obdurate in repelling 
the caresses he lavished on her. He himself, too, by way 
of stimulating his courage, was drinking pretty hard, and, all 
things considered, was very likely consuming on his own 
sole account a great deal more than his two companions 
both together. 

Once, as he was bending down behind Nini, pretending 
to pick something up from the floor, in reality in order to 
put his burning lips to the cool, inviting surface of the 
girl’s neck behind, Ascott failed to see how Pere Moche, 
with the lightning quickness of a conjuring trick, sprinkled 
a whitey-grey powder over the frothing liquor in his cham¬ 
pagne glass. Dessert was on the table. But while Nini, 
nibbling at the strawberries on her plate, refused to drink 
any more wine, Ascott, who was tormented with a thirst 
that grew momentarily more intense, had a fourth bottle 
of champagne uncorked, of which he poured a good third 
into a glass for himself and drained it off at a draught. 

The Englishman was rapidly getting drunk, and now threw 
discretion to the winds in his plaguing of Nini, who more 
than once, playing her part to perfection, administered 
some shrewd slaps on the young man’s over enterprising 
hands. She even sprang up from her seat, as if to fly for 
refuge to her uncle and demand his protection. 

Old Moche followed the whole scene with a very wide 
awake glance, humming a tune at intervals and mimicking 
the ways of a man excited by the fumes of a heady wine 
and viewing life under the most roseate aspect. At a 
given moment, however, the old fellow, after looking sur¬ 
reptitiously at his watch, noted that it was half past eleven. 
He rose from the table staggering. Ascott burst out laugh¬ 
ing. “By the Lord! my dear Moche,” he cried out in a 
thick voice, “I verily believe you’re jolly well drunk!” 

Moche swayed more unsteadily than ever on his feet. 


IN A PRIVATE ROOM 


165 

“Drunk!” he replied, with a fine imitation of a drunkard’s 
hoarse tones, “never such a thing! I’m merry, just merry 
—as we all are. Here, just look here if I’m drunk; my 
hand don’t shake.” 

Moche picked up a full glass, solemnly lifted it from the 
table, rounding his elbow in a majestic gesture. Doubtless 
his condition baulked his praiseworthy efforts, for the glass 
after some frantic oscillations suddenly turned topsy turvy, 
spilling the wine over the carpet. 

The accident provoked an uproarious fit of wild mirth 
from Ascott: “Oh! there is no doubt about it, the old 
man is awfully drunk.” And now the young Englishman’s 
cup of happiness was filled to the brim, as he heard the 
other declare: 

“Why, yes, I don’t feel very well, my head’s going round 
a bit. With your leave, I’ll go out and breathe the fresh 
air a minute; but none of your nonsense now whilst I’m 
away! Ascott, I count on your good behaviour, I entrust 
that dear, good, virtuous child to your care”—and Pere 
Moche disappeared. 

Scarcely was he out of the room before Ascott shook off 
his intoxication and managed to rise from the divan on 
which he sprawled. Stepping to the door of the private 
room, he shot the bolt with an unsteady hand; then, re¬ 
gardless of Nini’s hypocritical prayers and protests, he went 
to the switch and turned off the electric current. 

“Oh! sir, sir!” shrilled the girl in a terrified voice, “what 
are you doing?. . . oh! ... for God’s sake, let me be 
. . . mother!” 

Meantime, no sooner was Moche out in the passage lead¬ 
ing to the private rooms than he recovered all his coolness 
and self-possession, as if by a miracle. The old scamp was 
much too astute to have let himself get tipsy; it was simply 
a piece of play-acting he had been at for the benefit of his 
host, a comedy that did not in the least take in his confi¬ 
dante and accomplice, Nini Guinon, though it completely 
bamboozled the young Englishman. With no small satis¬ 
faction Moche noted—as indeed the landlord had led him 
to expect when he came that morning to order the little 
dinner—that the adjoining rooms were unoccupied. After 
that he made sure that no one could spy on them from the 
floor below. 


i66 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


Everything was as it should be. The host of the Silver 
Goblet was used to these little private entertainments and 
knew it was not the proper thing to disturb those attending 
them under any circumstances. No doubt, somewhere 
about one o’clock in the morning, a waiter would come up 
to announce that it was time to be leaving, as the house was 
going to be shut up, but till that hour guests could count 
implicitly on the most absolute peace and quietness. 

Next, slipping down the back stairs leading direct from 
the entresol into the street, Moche was quickly in the open 
air. Advancing a few paces along the sidewalk, he whistled 
and then stood listening. A second later a succession of 
notes became audible, similar to those formed by the old 
man’s lips; again advancing, he came upon two fellows 
lurking in a doorway. It was the “Gasman” and “Bull’s- 
eye,” and not far off stood an automobile, to which the old 
man pointed with the question: “It’s yours, that contrap¬ 
tion yonder?” 

“Yes,” replied the “Gasman,” “that’s to say it’s a pal’s 
machine; we chose him because he’s as silent as the tomb, 
and don’t have no eyes in the back of his head; he’ll do 
what he’s told—asks three louis for his night.” 

“All serene!” declared Moche, rubbing his hands. “Now 
listen to me, you chaps; keep an eye on the shanty I’ve come 
out of, and when I show my hat out of the window, you 
must come along softly, the pigeon’ll be asleep. The pigeon’s 
mate’ll go with you and no fuss, you may rely on that. As 
you drive on, best clap on the cords and the gag; you might 
be interrupted, and it must all be shipshape, just to avoid 
accidents. Twig?” 

“Right oh!” sang out “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” 
in chorus, 

Moche, in generous mood, handed over to each of them 
a fifty franc note: “You see,” he pointed out, “I always 
pay well.” 

“Yes,” growled “Bull’s-eye,” “that ain’t like Fantomas, 
that ain’t! Didn’t I give him a hand in that there lake 
business, when he cleared off with the princess’s jewelry. 
Well, if I’ve made a brown or two out of it, that’s about 
all—just because he didn’t see me at work. I’m thinking if 
Fantomas don’t fork out . . 

“All serene,” Pere Moche interrupted his grumblings 


IN A PRIVATE ROOM 167 

“there’s no question of Fantomas for the moment. Be 
smart, be ready . . . I’m going up there again.” 

At the door of the private room, the old man, resuming 
his former role, gave a discreet tap, saying with a laugh: 

“Why, what now? ... so you’ve locked yourself in, eh? 
a little joke, for sure? . . . but no more nonsense now! 
Come, come, open the door. Do be serious a bit . . . and 
then you know, I’m still thirsty, I want to finish out the 
bottle!” 

Then he stopped talking to listen. Not a sound came 
from inside and the old fellow was growing impatient. He 
knocked twice, sharply and peremptorily. 

At last the door opened, and Nini appeared, her hair 
flying loose and her clothes in disorder. 

“What a time he’s been giving me!” she whispered 
grinning, “a devil of a fellow, my dear man!” 

But Moche was in no joking mood; he demanded: “And 
now?” 

“Now,” Nini proceeded, still speaking under her breath; 
but opening the door a little wider, so that Moche could 
slip into the room, which was still in darkness, “now he’s 
snoring like a good ’un! suppose it’s the powder you tipped 
into his champagne; I bet he’s good to sleep on till to¬ 
morrow morning, come what may.” 

Moche looked down at Ascott, who lay stretched on the 
divan, and saw that Nini was speaking the truth; the 
young man was sleeping like a top. The old usurer shook 
him by the arm, twitched his hair, but the Englishman, as 
drunk as a lord and bowled over into the bargain by the 
soporific he had swallowed, was beyond rousing. 

Without relighting the lights, Moche ran to the window 
and waved his hat out of it; then coming back into the 
room, he laughed delightedly. 

“First-rate, my gal, it’s going first-rate,” he assured 
Nini; “to my mind the job’s as good as done!” 

The two accomplices fell silent a moment, then with one 
impulse both stood listening. On the stairs communicating 
directly with the street the sound of stealthy footsteps 
could be heard. It was “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” 
coming up. 


CHAPTER XVI 


NEXT MORNING! 

Heavy-eyed, with a smarting brow and a raging headache, 
Ascott awoke late the following morning. It was about 
ten o’clock when the young man in the big four-poster, 
whose twisted Renaissance pillars almost touched the ceiling, 
stretched his cramped limbs and slowly came back to a 
consciousness of his surroundings. His throat was parched 
with an insatiable thirst; mechanically and without opening 
his eyes, for he knew to a nicety the position of the various 
articles that stood near his bed, he extended a faltering 
arm towards a little table at the bedside, reaching for the 
water bottle his carefully trained servant used to put there 
every night full of water. His hand felt over the marble 
top of the table, but failed to find what he sought. He was 
so weary, his head was throbbing so painfully he could not 
at first summon up courage enough to rise. Again lazily 
stretching, he turned over between the sheets and tried to 
get to sleep again, setting his face to the wall to guard his 
smarting eyes against the light of day that penetrated the 
heavy curtains drawn across the window. 

Not a sound was audible; the mansion the wealthy Eng¬ 
lishman had purchased some weeks ago was as silent as 
the grave, the domestics far away in the basement where 
the offices and kitchen were situated going about their 
business softly so as not to disturb their master’s slumbers. 
Nor did the latter feel the smallest desire to get up, though 
out of doors the weather was magnificent, the sky of Paris 
as blue as on an Italian summer’s day and the temperature, 
genial even at this morning hour, promising an afternoon 
of almost tropical heat. 

But sleep refused to come at the young man’s call; his 
throat was burning, his. mouth dry as a bone. Drink he 
must at all costs to quench the fire that consumed him, 
to mitigate these painful and inevitable consequences of 

168 


NEXT MORNING! 


169 

his over indulgence in the generous wines of the night 
before. Screwing up his courage to the needful effort, 
slowly, painfully, moving like an automaton, Ascott sat 
up in bed, clasped his damp brow, then slipped one leg 
from between the sheets; the other followed, his naked feet 
shivering as they touched the bedside mat. Catching a 
glimpse of a dressing gown lying within reach on a chair, 
he put it on with the cross and sulky looks of an ill-used 
martyr. 

“That beast of a John,” he was thinking, “by forgetting 
to put my water ready last night will have made me ill for 
the rest of the day!” 

Stumbling across the room, his eyes still only half open, 
Ascott made for the dressing room adjoining his bedroom, 
in which he felt sure—at least he hoped so—of finding a 
supply of clear, fresh water that should revive his energies 
depressed by the consumption of unlimited alcoholic liquors 
and liqueurs. He opened the door of his bathroom, but 
on the point of entering, he stopped dead on the threshold, 
dumbfounded by what he saw, albeit with a very vague 
and confused comprehension of the apparition that met his 
gaze! The room, generally so neat and tidy and meticu¬ 
lously ordered, every crystal phial and pomatum pot and 
toilet article in its appointed place on the dressing table, 
was this morning in the wildest disorder. There were 
bottles without stoppers giving out heady perfumes, brushes 
scattered about the floor, towels tossed at random over the 
backs of chairs. 

But what above all else surprised the young man and 
filled him with the most intense amazement was to see on the 
Louis Seize settee, where he often threw himself after his 
bath to be massaged by his servant man to restore his 
numbed limbs to their proper suppleness, a woman lying 
there, half undressed and her hair undone, curled up on 
the couch buried in heavy, but restless slumbers. Her 
clothes, her skirt, her bodice lay about the floor, her shoes 
lay one in a comer cheek by jowl with a copper kettle, 
the other precariously perched on the shelf of a what-not! 

Ascott had no need to look twice to recognize the sleeper. 
It was Nini Guinon, old Moche’s niece, the girl he had dined 
with yesterday evening in the private room . . . who at 
the close of the entertainment when her uncle went away, 


170 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

had been left alone with him, . . . whom he had made his 
mistress! 

Ascott gazed long at the sleeping figure in utter bewilder¬ 
ment; he was still very tired and his mind was slow to 
understand, while an atrocious neuralgic headache tortured 
him. What had happened then, following the moment when 
he had found himself alone with Nini Guinon in the private 
room at the restaurant in the Place de la Bastille? He 
could remember nothing, he had forgotten everything. All 
the same his conscience told him that the history of subse¬ 
quent events should not be very difficult to reconstruct. 
At the same time he was suffering atrociously, his head, his 
forehead, the nape of his neck were all seats of horrid pain. 
It felt as though every hair that bristled on his skull was a 
needle point painfully pricking the scalp. Putting off till 
later all thought of seriously considering his plight, Ascott, 
on tip-toe, moving carefully to avoid making the slightest 
noise, but as a first preliminary having drained at a draught 
half the contents of a water-jug, crept across the room, 
resolved to regain his bed and sleep off the last vestiges of 
his fatigue. 

But hardly had he taken a couple of steps when he started 
and swore. A soft knock had sounded on the door. The 
tired man deemed no reply needful; no one surely would 
venture to come in without his permission, and that he was 
not disposed to give. But evidently it was ordained that 
the unfortunate young man should not be left in peace that 
morning to sleep off the effects of his last night’s indulgence. 
In defiance of the established customs of the house, hitherto 
invariably respected, the door, without leave given, was 
half opened. A head appeared, a face of consternation, the 
head and face of his servant John. Ascott, who at the 
moment was making for the bed, turned sharply round and 
sitting down on the coverlet, addressed the domestic in 
angry tones: 

“What ever has come to you, John what do you want? 
I haven’t rung, that I know of.” 

For all that the man pushed into the room and advanced 
some steps nearer his master. 

“Forgive me, sir,” he murmured, “I should never have 
dared to come into your bedroom, sir, without being sum¬ 
moned, but there’s someone wishing to. . . 


NEXT MORNING! 


171 

Ascott stfled a yawn, signifying by a peremptory wave 
of the hand his refusal to hear another word. 

“You are mad, John; you know perfectly well I never 
receive visitors at this hour of the day.” 

“Excuse me, sir, but it seems it is important.” 

“Nothing is important enough to wake me up for,” de¬ 
clared Ascott. 

But the servant went on with extraordinary and un¬ 
precedented persistency. 

“It is the old fellow who sometimes comes to see you, sir, 
the business agent, your lawyer, sir, old M. Moche. I 
explained you could not see him, sir, but he insisted all the 
same, he almost forced me to come up here . . . please 
excuse me, sir, but . . .” 

His master was furious. Calling up, not without diffi¬ 
culty, all the will power he possessed, all the energy he 
was capable of that morning, he vociferated passionately: 

“I will not see him and if the old chap insists, chuck 
him out of the house!” 

Ascott had hardly uttered the words before a grave and 
dignified voice was heard in the anteroom adjoining the 
bed-chamber, and at the same moment there issued from the 
shadows, pushing his way into the room, someone whose 
identity could admit of no mistake even to the English¬ 
man’s sleepy eyes. It was in fact M. Moche coming in, 
in defiance of all prohibition. Dressed, as always, in his 
long, black frock-coat, holding in his hand his tall hat with 
the dulled, dented surface, M. Moche showed dirtier and still 
more repulsive-looking in the broad light of day than by 
candlelight, but also more solemn and more majestic. 

The old man bowed slightly to Ascott, who sat silent and 
impassive on his bed. 

“I have to speak to you, sir, to speak to you, alone,” he 
announced, casting a thunderous glance at the old servant, 
but the latter never budged, waiting for his master’s orders. 

Ascott resigned himself to the inevitable: “Go, John,” 
he ordered, “we wish to be alone.” 

Hardly had the door closed behind the servant before 
Moche, throwing his calm and majestic manner to the winds, 
rushed up to the young Englishman and in a beseeching 
voice half choked with emotion, but nevertheless showing 
just a shade of menace, demanded: 


172 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“Sir, where is my niece, my child? what have you done 
with my sister’s child?” 

Ascott shook in his shoes; just what he was fearing had 
occurred, and that at a time, at an hour in the morning, 
when he would have given all he possessed to be left in 
peace. He made a slight, nonchalant, evasive gesture, 
feigning he had never an inkling of the meaning of Pere 
Moche’s question. 

“Your niece,” he protested, “I know nothing of what 
has become of her; am I her keeper?” 

But Moche broke in again. With rising passion the old 
business man shouted: 

“You lie, sir; you have odiously abused my trust in you, 
abused the friendship I felt for you. Do not try to deny 
your guilt; I know all. To begin with, taking advantage 
of a moment’s negligence on my part, you locked yourself 
in alone with Nini in the private room where we all three 
dined, and like a very satyr, a perfect monster of vice, you 
were dastard enough to seduce my niece, poor child!” 

Playing his odious comedy to perfection, the old fellow 
sank into a chair, and dropping his head between his hands, 
pretended to sob. In a piteous voice, he whined: 

“Poor child! poor darling Nini, so gentle, so pure, so 
virtuous, what a hideous awakening must this have been 
for her. Oh! I can picture her despair and horror. It is 
frightful, maddening!” 

Moche sprang up and again approached Ascott, who, 
vexed beyond measure, was gazing on the scene with a dazed 
expression in his haggard eyes. 

“What has become of her? We have spent a dreadful 
night, sir, I tortured with fear and anxiety, her poor mother 
in terrible suspense, for Nini has never returned home; 
where is she? you alone can say, and you must and shall.” 

Meanwhile, as he spoke, Moche had gone over to the 
window and half-drawn back the curtains, admitting day¬ 
light into the darkened room. Seeing that the bed was 
empty, that the bedroom showed no signs of disorder and 
held no one else save the young Englishman, the old 
brigand appeared surprised, not to say disconcerted. For 
some moments he stood hesitating, at fault, thinking to 
himself: 

“So ho! then the business can’t have turned out quite as 


NEXT MORNING! 


173 


I expected! that imbecile of a little Nini must have misun¬ 
derstood, can she have been such a fool as to go before I 
got here?” 

Moche stood biting his lips in perplexity, hesitating what! 
course to follow, and to gain time began shouting at Ascott 
again: 

“What has become of Nini? what have you done with 
her? answer me, sir, answer me!” 

But the young man was trembling with apprehension. 
He had been listening and in spite of the rumpus old Moche 
was kicking up, he caught the sound of faint, furtive noises 
coming from the adjoining room. For a little while the 
Englishman had been congratulating himself on his success 
in feigning ignorance and seeming to attach no meaning to 
the questions addressed to him by the unspeakable uncle 
of the pretty child he had made his mistress the evening 
before. He hoped that, wearying of the contest, old Moche 
would go away, and firm in his original intention, he swore 
to himself he would then double lock his door and at any 
cost go on sleeping for at least another two hours! 

But now the noise in the dressing room was upsetting his 
plans, for he felt convinced that Nini was certainly awake. 
What would the girl decide to do? Infuriated by the atti¬ 
tude adopted by the man who, taking her by surprise and 
defenceless, had become her lover, would she spring forth 
and demand vengeance, or else, dumb with despair, covered 
with shame at her dishonour, would she be afraid to show 
herself in the disorder of her morning toilet before the eyes 
of the old uncle she loved and seemed to esteem so highly? 

Ascott had no time left him to weigh probabilities at 
length, for the first of these two hypotheses was promptly 
realized. Besides which, M. Moche had also, like Ascott, 
heard noises in the adjoining room, and instinctively the 
old fellow was making for the door of the dressing room 
when Nini appeared. 

The girl was pale as death, her eyes glittered with a 
strange brilliance, her lips quivered in a nervous spasm; 
at sight of her uncle and as if surprised to find him there, 
she made a show of hesitation, first advancing, then drawing 
back. Finally, she darted to the old man’s side, threw her¬ 
self into his arms and hiding her face on his shoulder, broke 
into loud sobs, crying: 


174 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“Oh, uncle, uncle! dear uncle!” 

The scene the two base accomplices were playing with 
such noteworthy spirit to cajole the rich Englishman was 
assuredly touching, and it was interpreted with a consum¬ 
mate art worthy of professional actors. But the play was 
only beginning! Nini now tore herself from the arms of 
her supposed relative and turning to Ascott, gazed long at 
her lover with a look at once tender and aggrieved. Then, 
very softly, she murmured: 

“Oh, sir! sir! what have you done?” 

Next old Moche took the cue: “You have dishonoured 
her, sir; you have committed an irreparable crime; it is 
shameful, abominable! ” 

While her uncle was speaking, Nini, overwhelmed by 
the intensity of her emotion, fell to the floor and lay sob¬ 
bing in the cleverly calculated pose of a beautiful statue of 
Grief! 

Ascott was dreadfully upset by the unpleasant incident. 
The young man cursed the mad fit that had come over 
him the night before, while he experienced a very genuine 
regret at the thought that he had ruined this pretty child, 
who through his fault had lost her good name for ever. 

Meantime a fresh witness of the lamentable scene sud¬ 
denly arrived. John burst into the room like a whirlwind. 
Running to his master: 

“Sir, sir,” he cried, “the world is coming to an end!” 

The Englishman, whose raging headache, so far from 
getting better, was growing more agonizing every minute, 
nevertheless preserved an imperturbable calm. 

“What ever is to do, John, what d’you want?” 

“Sir,” continued the domestic, who with blanched face 
and eyes unnaturally dilated, was staring at his master and 
Pere Moche, and above ail at the young woman lying on 
the floor, “Sir, it is the law!” 

“The law!” cried Ascott; “you are mad, John!” 

“No, sir, no, I am not mad; it is a Judge, a Court of 
Law, I don’t know what all!” 

His master was soon to be enlightened. Just as a little 
before M. Moche had pushed into the bedroom without 
being announced, with a like lack of ceremony three indi¬ 
viduals had made their way along the corridor to the door 
of the room, and now stepped across the threshold. One of 


NEXT MORNING! 


175 


them advanced in front of the other two, a man of forty 
or so, short, with a jovial-looking face and a heavy, black 
moustache; he pulled from his pocket a tricolour scarf, 
which he displayed before Ascott’s astonished eyes. 

“I am the Commissary of Police, sir,” he announced. “Is 
it to Monsieur Ascott I have the honour to speak?” 

“To the same,” replied the young man, turning pale, 
while drops of cold sweat gathered on his brow. 

“You sent for me, sir,” pursued the Commissary. 

“I!” exclaimed Ascott, “never such a thing! it wasn’t I!” 

M. Moche broke into the dialogue: “It was I, Monsieur 
le Commissaire, who took the liberty of asking you to 
come, and also, you will remember, the two gentlemen who 
are with you.” 

“I’m utterly at sea,” muttered Ascott, in a wearied voice; 
“I don’t understand . . .” 

“You will soon understand!” declared Moche, trucu¬ 
lently. 

After that Ascott began to scrutinize in sick bewilderment 
not only the Police Commissary, but also the two men who 
stood behind him, a pair of white-faced loafers of dubious 
aspect and repulsive countenance; they stood twisting about 
in evident embarrassment, jumping from one foot to the 
other and mechanically turning about their greasy caps 
between their fingers. 

Presently the Commissary addressed the two apaches, 
pointing to M. Ascott. 

“Do you recognize that gentleman?” he asked. 

“Why, yes, it’s as you might say, the party what engaged 
us last evening, about midnight, at the restaurant of the 
Silver Goblet . . .” 

The Commissary questioned Ascott: “You were dining, 
were you not, at a restaurant in the Place de la Bas¬ 
tille, with the gentleman here present and mademoi¬ 
selle?”—and the magistrate, to avoid any possibility of 
mistake, pointed in succession to M. Moche and Nini 
Guinon. 

“Yes,” admitted Ascott, not understanding what his 
questioner would be at. 

“Good,” continued the Commissary, and put another 
question: 

“Are you ready to let us hear the proposals you made 


176 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

to these two gentlemen?”— this time pointing to “Bulls- 
eye” and the “Gasman.” 

But the Englishman could only stare in bewilderment 
at the two ruffians; he cudgelled his brains in vain, and 
despite the strain he imposed on his addled wits, he could 
not remember having made any proposal whatsoever to the 
individuals before him. 

“But I don’t know those persons,” he articulated with 
difficulty. 

The Commissary gave a sceptical smile. 

“Speak!” he ordered, addressing the “Gasman,” “Re¬ 
peat to the gentleman the deposition you came to my office 
to make.” 

“Here’s for it then!” the apache spoke with some show 
of embarrassment at telling his story before everybody, “it 
was like this—the two of us, ‘Bull’s-eye’ and I, we were just 
on the saunter last evening, as you might say, near by the 
Bastille, when all of a minute we saw a toff a-coming down 
the stairs of the swell pub; it was the gentleman you say, 
the Englishman here present. He seemed a bit squiffy as 
he talked; he said to us like this: ‘There’s a brace of quid 
to be made, my lads, if you’ll lend a hand to help a lady 
down who’s ill seemingly upstairs, and take her back to her 
home; only, case she should kick up a bit of a rumpus, 
mustn’t let her talk.’ We chaps, we ain’t no millionaires, 
you know, sir, and two quid’s not to be refused. ‘Right oh! ’ 
we told the Englishman, and there we were a-going up the 
stairs of the house. The Englishman, he took us into a pri¬ 
vate ken, where there was a wench, who set up a devil of a 
screeching when she saw us; but the Englishman claps a 
napkin over her mug, seemingly to make a gag; then says 
he to us: ‘Off you go, hook it, stir your stumps! There’s 
another two quid if you do it sharp!’ That made four 
quid, so you may bet your life we were on, sir. Then we get 
the baggage downstairs, clap her in a motor-car, and the 
four of us drive off here, all serene like. The wench never 
moved; by the Englishman’s orders she’d been tied up hand 
and foot; he paid fair and square and went straight in. 

“But look’ee, sir, getting back to the Bastille, we two, 
‘Bull’s-eye’ and self, we began to feel middling dicky, 
telling ourselves maybe we’d been lending a hand at a dirty 
job. Then just as we came out on the Place from the 


NEXT MORNING! 


177 

last Underground and were harking back to the Silver Goblet 
for to see what had been doing since, blessed if we didn’t 
come upon the stout gentleman who’s sitting in the arm¬ 
chair there, and who we’ve found out since is caljed 
M. Moche—the old bird was singing out a good ’un, 
tearing his hair, he was! His niece, he kept bawling, had 
disappeared, had been carried off by a satyr 1 he was in 
despair, he said, he didn’t know where she was. Then 
‘Bull’s-eye’ made up to him: 

“ ‘Wasn’t she a little, dark girl, the wench you’re howling 
about?’ he asks him. 

“ ‘Yes, yes . . . Might you, maybe, know where she is?’ 

“ ‘Maybe we might, and maybe we might not.’ 

“ ‘Bull’s-eye,’ he was getting to feel funny-like, and I 
wasn’t just over happy, we’d been and done a nasty trick. 
But there was a way, p’raps, to make up for our foolishness, 
and we made up our minds to do the right thing. Old 
Moche, he stuck to us all night; back we trotted to the 
district we’d taken the wench to, hunted round to recog¬ 
nize the house and found it at last . 

“ ‘And then Pere Moche, he out with it: 

“ ‘Must come along with me to the Commissary, my lads, 
and tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth; else you may be certain sure you’re in for a hatful 
of trouble! So there you are, sir, that’s what we did!” 

The apache broke off, then suddenly, with a superb 
gesture, drawing four gold louis from his pocket, he spread 
them out in the hollow of his hand, and marching up to 
Ascott, he made a proposal to the rich Englishman that 
astounded the latter more than ever. 

“Would it hurt you, sir, to take back your money? The 
tin was not honestly earned, and it bums our fingers!” 

With a look of disgust the apache tossed on to the young 
man’s knees the four gold coins, which rolled under the 
bed. 

Pere Moche broke in: “Such, Monsieur le Commissaire, 
are the facts as they occurred—you know them yourself, 
sir; indeed, M. Ascott does not deny them. Besides which, 
the presence in his house of my unhappy niece, a mere 
child, sir, barely sixteen years of age, whom he has odiously 
wronged, is surely the best proof of guilt . . .” 

But Moche never finished his sentence. At last Ascott 


178 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

was master of the situation; a grim passion of indignation 
was rising in his breast, the blazing anger only men of a cold, 
calm temperament are capable of. With never a thought 
of the dignity of the functionary he addressed, he pointed 
to the door, and: “Out of the room, sir!” he ordered the 
Commissary. With majestic mien, the magistrate turned 
on his heel, still holding, however, his tricolour scarf in 
his hand. 

“Moderate your language, sir!” he protested, in haughty 
accents; “do not forget you are speaking to the representa¬ 
tive of law and order. However, I obey your wish, deeming 
my duty to be completed in this house.” Then, turning to 
the two apaches: 

“I will likewise ask the witnesses to withdraw, in an 
orderly way and in silence.” 

Finally he addressed himself to M. Moche: 

“If the young lady, your niece, sir, wishes to go, she 
will find a conveyance at the door.” 

Moche overwhelmed the Commissary with his thanks, 
while Nini, who had a little before retired into the dressing 
room, was hastily completing her toilet to quit the house 
of the man who had become her lover in so strange a 
fashion. Some minutes passed in silence, during which the 
several actors in this amazing scene were busy with the most 
varied reflections. Pere Moche remained impassive to all 
outward seeming, but in his heart he was overjoyed at the 
happy turn events were taking; once or twice he threw a 
meaning glance at his two confederates of the previous 
evening, who had carried out his instructions so w T ell. 

In telling his story, invented for the occasion, the “Gas¬ 
man” had actually spoken in the very tones of one convinced 
of the truth of what he was relating. The fellow had made 
no mistakes, he had narrated the adventure exactly in the 
way agreed upon, and above all, Pere Moche admired the 
apache’s final act, one that had not been arranged before¬ 
hand, the act of giving back to Ascott the accursed gold 
wherewith he had, as he thought, bought the complicity of 
the two wretches, an act calculated to remove all doubt 
from the Commissary’s mind, if by any chance he should 
have been dubious of the witnesses’ good faith. 

“By Gad! though,” Moche muttered to himself by way 
of conclusion. “Ascott makes eighty francs by the trans- 


NEXT MORNING! 


179 

action—eighty francs I shall have to make good to the two 
scamps!” 

As for Ascott, he was asking himself in ever-increasing 
bewilderment, if he were not the victim of a delusion, a 
nightmare, a hideous dream. Yes, he had a perfect recol¬ 
lection of the evening’s dinner that began so gaily, and he 
was bound to confess that at the end of the meal, taking 
advantage of old Moche’s absence, he had indeed wronged 
little Nini—though all the same, he could not help thinking 
the girl had not offered any very determined resistance. But 
of what might have happened afterwards, he could recall 
nothing whatever. He seemed to remember falling fast 
asleep, and he could not for an instant believe he had gone 
out to look for a pair of apaches to have Nini Guinon 
forcibly carried off to his house. . . . Yet, it might be so, 
for on the one hand they said it was, while on the other, 
on awakening he had actually found Nini fast asleep on the 
couch in his dressing room. 

But presently the young Englishman began to ask him¬ 
self what, after all, was the vast importance of all these inci¬ 
dents, and why such a mighty disturbance was being made 
over the adventure. He* had not to wait long for the 
explanation! 

Meanwhile, Nini was ready to go; the girl looked prettier 
than ever with her modest mien and assumed look of 
shamefacedness, as she made slowly for the door, by which 
“Bulls-eye” and the “Gasman” had already taken their 
departure some while ago. After casting a long look of 
affection and reproach at her rich lover, she preceded her 
uncle and the magistrate as they left the room. 

But before actually crossing the threshold, the magistrate 
called a halt, to point out to Ascott the consequences implied 
by his visit. 

“All this, sir, makes it my duty,” he announced sternly, 
“to draw up an official report; you must be aware that the 
position in which you have placed yourself is a very 
serious one; it is a matter for the Criminal Assize, involving 
as it does, abduction of a minor, further aggravated by 
violation and rape. I ought, properly speaking, to arrest 
you. Be very grateful I do not do so, and hold yourself 
at the disposition of the Court.” 

“What is that you say, sir?” cried Ascott, in sudden 


180 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

alarm. But the magistrate merely bowed to the English¬ 
man without another word and made his exit. 

For a moment the young man was left alone in the room, 
but presently, plucking up his spirits, he sprang hurriedly to 
the door of the ante-room: 

“Moche, Monsieur Moche!” he called the old man back 
in a voice choked with agitation. Moche was already half¬ 
way down the stairs, but he turned back and re-entered 
the room: 

“What do you want with me, sir?” he asked, eyeing the 
Englishman haughtily up and down. 

“Moche, come here,” said the latter, and hurriedly catch¬ 
ing the other by the sleeve of his coat, he led him into an 
adjoining room, his library and study. In feverish haste 
he pulled open a drawer and took out a cheque-book. 
Dipping a pen in the ink, he paused before writing to ask: 

“Monsieur Moche, how much?” 

“Beg pardon!” said the old brigand. 

Ascott, mastering his nerves, repeated once more: 

“I ask you, how much do you want? this is a cheque I 
have here, which I am ready to sign in your favour; fix 
the amount yourself, and let us have done with this 
nonsense.” 

A gleam of cupidity flashed in the usurer’s eyes, but 
that astute personage did not yield to the temptation. 
It was not in that fashion he hoped to bleed the English¬ 
man; his project was more pretentious, his plan more com¬ 
plicated than that. The old man feigned the greatest 
indignation: 

“It is shameful, sir; you insult me! After your villainous 
treatment of my niece, you offer me money. Sir, you mis¬ 
take my character altogether! No, sir, I do not take that 
bait, the affair must follow its course!” 

Ascott turned livid. “Moche,” he supplicated, “we are 
friends . . ,” 

“We were friends, sir.” 

“Moche! . . . Monsieur Moche! I cannot have a scan¬ 
dal!” 

“Nini Guinon, my niece, sir, is dishonoured.” 

“But, Moche, how can this be arranged?” 

“There is but one way, sir, to right the wrong done, 
religion and society offer you the means.” 


NEXT MORNING! 181 

Ascott hesitated a moment, then he replied with a shud¬ 
der. 

“Marriage, you mean?” he cried; “you would have me 
marry Nini Guinon . . . you forget that I am a great 
nobleman!” 

Moche corrected: “Lord Ascott, yes; but that’s not you, 
that is your father.” 

“I am his son . . .” 

“His younger son, sir, which is by no means the same 
thing. There is nothing should hinder your marrying an 
honest girl whom you have led astray from the paths of 
duty.” 

Ascott was obviously wavering. “Moche, my good 
friend, Moche!” he besought the old scamp, “there must be 
other ways of settling the question; I am rich, I care noth¬ 
ing for the money . . .” 

“Enough!” Pere Moche cut him short peremptorily, “I 
have told you, sir, what a true-hearted gentleman, what a 
man of honour, would not for one instant hesitate to do. 
On the basis of repairing the wrong by marriage, you will 
find us always ready to listen to you, to facilitate matters; 
otherwise, it is of no use attempting to see me again”—and 
the old man marched majestically for the door, leaving 
Ascott absolutely dumbfounded, the pen trembling between 
his fingers, his cheque-book lying open before his eyes. 

However, before finally going, M. Moche came to a halt 
on the threshold, and in a ringing voice, threw down a final 
challenge, a supreme work of menace and defiance: 

“We shall meet again, sir . . . in the Court of Assize.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


FAN TOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 

In the drives of the Parc des Princes, as a rule deserted 
in the evening, the sombre ways that start from the forti¬ 
fications and unite Paris with Boulogne-sur-Seine, ways 
bordered by sumptuous private mansions, elegant villas and 
blocks of luxurious fiats, there was to-night an unaccus¬ 
tomed coming and going of motor-cars, broughams, and 
even democratic taxis. All these vehicles were making in 
the same direction; and and all were swallowed up by the 
great gates that stood wide open before a private dwelling 
standing just half way down the grand avenue that runs 
between the city conservatories and the Bois. 

There for some months had been living the Grand Duch¬ 
ess Alexandra, bosom friend of the King of Hesse-Weimar, 
one of the most noted personalities of the foreign colony 
in Paris. No one, in fact, making any pretence to belong to 
society, could fail to be acquainted with the elegant and 
enterprising grand duchess. All knew her as a pretty woman, 
a wealthy woman, and report said a good and charitable 
one; many a time her witty sayings had raised a laugh in 
fashionable drawing rooms, while she enjoyed a reputation 
for Parisian chic that was certainly not unjustified. 

Great lady as she was, there was something mysterious, 
possibly equivocal, about her personality, and, if life in 
Paris were not so stirring, so exacting, so absorbing, many 
who frequented her receptions might well have asked who 
precisely she was, and have searched curiously through the 
pages of the Almanach de Gotha to find the credentials for 
her ducal blazon. The high rank she held at the Court of 
Frederick Christian II was indeed matter of common 
knowledge, further, that she was honoured by the very 
special friendship of the Prince Gudulfin was whispered 
in private conclave; but this pretty well summed up the 
total of what society in general did know about her. But 

182 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 183 

it is never the custom, so long as a woman is rich, beautiful 
and witty, so long as no open scandal attaches to her name, 
to be over-exacting'as to details? At any rate, each time 
the grand duchess threw open her drawing rooms for one 
of the superb and sumptuous entertainments she was in 
the habit of giving, no eagerness was too shameless to 
secure an invitation, no one but was only too proud and 
happy to be numbered among her guests. 

Though it was already May, the Grand Duchess Alex¬ 
andra was to-night giving a fancy-dress ball. This had long 
been promised, but having been postponed in consequence 
of the great lady’s being indisposed, was at last fixed for 
this belated period of the season. 

It was eleven o’clock, and guests were beginning to 
arrive, carriages driving up in rapid succession to the steps 
of the villa, one after the other depositing masked figures, 
some baffling, some charming, in costumes borrowed from 
legend, history, in some cases even recalling contemporary 
politics. Dancing had not yet commenced, all were de¬ 
voting their energies to applauding, enthusiastically ap¬ 
plauding, the most becoming dresses, the most ingenious 
disguises, as they appeared. The evening was delicious, the 
mild spring weather perfect, so that the masquers could 
gather under the wide awning that sheltered the steps and 
there welcome each new arrival. 

The general attention was beginning to flag, and the 
duchess herself, abandoning the attempt to shake every new 
arrival by the hand—their number made the task im¬ 
possible—was about to return to the reception rooms, where 
the Gipsy orchestra had just struck up one of their softest 
and most melodious waltz tunes, when a magnificent auto¬ 
mobile drew up at the steps. The car roused no little 
curiosity by the fact that its blinds were drawn down so as 
to make it impossible to see who was inside. Instinctively 
almost, as sometimes happens, the talk grew hushed; heads 
were turned and necks craned to see. Staying momentarily 
the play of her ever-moving fan, the grand duchess herself 
seemed to be puzzled as she eagerly awaited the newcomer, 
whose very sex was still a secret. 

Then the door of the car opened at last; and suddenly 
through the crowd, till then so gay, ran a shudder of distress 
and terror. “Ah, ahs!” of amazement could be heard, while 


184 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

even the hostess’s cheek paled. A striking, an extraordi¬ 
nary figure it was that alighted from the mysterious equi¬ 
page. The costume, to be sure, was recognized by one and 
all—but who, who had had the hardihood to don it? 

In the dazzling illumination shed by the lights scattered 
everywhere about the front of the mansion, the newcomer’s 
figure stood out with extraordinary clearness. It was that 
of a man, still young; he was clad from head to foot in a 
complete suit of closely fitting black tights; his shoulders 
were wrapped in a long cloak, also black, even his face 
was hidden beneath a black cowl that prevented so much 
as a guess at the colour of his hair. 

A dreadful costume! a tragic figure! an emblem of fear! 
The name of this mysterious masquer passed quickly from 
lip to lip, set every heart beating fast and furiously, sounded 
a grim refrain to every sentence spoken: 

“Fantomas! ... it is Fantomas!” 

But while his arrival was causing so great a sensation, 
while the company, taken by surprise, showed itself afraid, 
almost, panic-stricken almost, the unknown himself was ad¬ 
vancing to greet the Grand Duchess Alexandra. Bowing 
low before his hostess with the manner of a finished gentle¬ 
man, in a grave, but agreeable voice: 

“I was told, Madame la Duchesse,” he said, “that Fan¬ 
tomas attended every festivity. No sooner had I landed 
in France than they swore to me he was afraid of nothing. 
That is why I did not think it needful to warn you of 
my coming to your fete. That is why I believed myself 
justified in visiting you under this . , . disguise.” 

The Grand Duchess’s voice trembled a little as she ques¬ 
tioned him: 

“But to whom have I the pleasure to be speaking?” 

The masquer replied: 

“To Fantomas, madam!” 

“To Fantomas, of course! . . . but besides?” 

Clearly it would have been discourteous to carry on the 
secret further. Indeed, the unknown had not failed to 
note the half concealed fear, the very real distress, his 
arrival had produced among the grand duchess’s guests. 
To prolong this constraint would not have been becoming; 
the “Fantomas” therefore answered: 

“Very good, madam, as it is your pleasure to unmask 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 185 

me, I cannot deny your wish, and I put off my cowl . . 

—and he lifted the silken folds concealing his features. 
Next instant a tempest of applause, a tornado of acclama¬ 
tion, from all present, greeted the hero of the hour. It was 
indeed a fine piece of daring, a splendid stroke of defiance, 
something quite Parisian and cynical, this grim disguise 
adopted by the man who wore it. In the half minute he 
stood, there unmasked, he had been recognized. The 
masquer who had put on the outward semblance of Fan¬ 
tomas was no other than Fantomas’ declared enemy, no 
other than Tom Bob! 

Meantime the latter was bowing right and left, then 
glided swiftly among the groups of his acquaintance, 
grasping the men’s hands, kissing the ladies’, a very gallant 
gentleman. A curious thing, too, to observe that, while 
these fashionable men and women would never have con¬ 
descended to clasp hands with a common inspector of the 
French Investigation Bureau, they were making much of 
Tom Bob, just because he was a foreigner. True, he 
had originally joined the police as an amateur, out of curi¬ 
osity and for the sake of amusement, and it was only by 
degrees, after a series of notable successes, that he had 
become a professional detective—and the fact was not 
forgotten. 

But the mystery was dissipated. After the inevitable 
panic created by this apparition of the terrible figure of 
Fantomas, a very real satisfaction, a genuine feeling of 
relief had been experienced in learning that beneath this 
horrid disguise was hidden the man who had pledged him¬ 
self to deliver Parisian society from Fantomas! In fact 
there was not one of all the grand duchess’s guests but 
entertained in his heart a secret dread of the desperate 
criminal. Ever since the brigand had sworn to the Parlia¬ 
ment to spread terror broadcast, every man felt himself 
more or less menaced. The American detective, by taking 
up the challenge thrown down by the Minister, had to 
some extent relieved these apprehensions, and society was 
grateful to him. 

For half an hour the Grand Duchess Alexandra, like an 
accomplished hostess, had been moving through the dif¬ 
ferent rooms, declining to dance herself, but finding for 
each an agreeable word, a gracious phrase of greeting, 


i86 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


when in a doorway by chance she came face to face with 
the “Fantomas.” 

“Monsieur Bob,” she was beginning, when next moment 
she broke off in startled surprise. And truly the great 
lady had good reason to be amazed. The masquer, whom 
she was about to congratulate once more on his clever 
disguise, had just committed a grave breach of etiquette. 
Bowing, he had, without a word, while pretending to kiss 
her hand, slipped a note inside her glove. Then, turning on 
his heels, not giving the grand duchess time to protest or 
answer, he had glided off among the dancers, putting be¬ 
tween them the effective barrier of the whirling couples. 

More than surprised, the grand duchess said and did 
w r hat any woman would have said and done under the cir¬ 
cumstances. 

“Tom Bob dares to slip a billet doux into my hand! 
What insolence! Most certainly I will go and throw it 
down at his feet, this execrable token of bad taste!” Then 
she reflected that, before getting rid of the scrap of paper 
she could feel under her glove, it would perhaps be amusing 
to cast a glance at it, and, her lips curling in a disdainful 
smile, the grand duchess, leaving the dancing rooms for a 
moment, went up to her private apartment. There, hastily 
turning on the electric light, she hurriedly glanced at the 
extraordinary letter. 

At first she thought she must be dreaming. The writing 
was not Tom Bob’s: nor was it the detective, that was 
certain, who had written on a corner of the paper by way 
of address, and there was no other, the five words, “For 
pity’s sake, read this!” Who was it then? Whose messen¬ 
ger had Tom Bob constituted himself? The grand duchess 
did not hesitate a second longer; unfolding the note, she 
read, and the contents instantly blanched her cheeks: 

“Madam,” the letter ran, “you will pardon the means I 
take to bring myself to your notice in consideration of the 
feelings that prompt me. In the name of all you hold dear, 
in the name of whatever pity your woman's heart may know 
for an unhappy lover, I beseech you to grant me your atten¬ 
tion for a few minutes this very evening. It is no enemy who 
writes to you, albeit my name may make you shudder; it is 
an unhappy man, an unhappy being who loves a young girl 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 187 

whom you know, one who cherishes no hope save in the 
influence you can exert over her, one who, amidst these 
merry-makers, under the black mask that veils his features, 
will be impatiently waiting the moment when you shall ac¬ 
cord him the brief interview he asks, the brief minutes of 
confidence he craves. Jerome Fandor. 

Jerome Fandor! The grand duchess thought she was 
dreaming, was it indeed possible it could be Jerome Fandor 
who had written to her? . . . Jerome Fandor, the ally of 
Juve? Jerome Fandor, the implacable enemy of Fan¬ 
tomas? Jerome Fandor whom all the world accused of 
the vilest crimes, but whom she well knew to be innocent! 
Jerome Fandor, how that name evoked at once fear and 
pity in the breast of that beautiful and mysterious per¬ 
sonage, the Grand Duchess Alexandra. What memories 
did it not call up of the saddest tragedies of her life? 

Jerome Fandor, perhaps the only living being who could 
possibly share with Juve the knowledge that she, the 
Grand Duchess Alexandra, was in reality named Lady 
Beltham, was in reality the mistress of Fantomas! And 
now it was this same Jerome Fandor, to-day her lover’s 
implacable foe, to-morrow no doubt his accuser, who came 
asking the favour of an interview! who asked the boon 
in the name of love! 

Lady Beltham stood trembling, her breath coming quick 
and fast as she read and re-read the brief note just passed 
to her. Then suddenly, shaking off all doubts, she made her 
decision. Yes, seeing it was in the name of love that 
Jerome Fandor wrote, seeing he besought her pity, she 
would not refuse his prayer. 

“My life, my unhappy life,” thought Lady Beltham, 
“has but one excuse—love. Whensoever I hear that name 
invoked, I shall be found ready to recognize the only senti¬ 
ment I feel some little respect for!” 

But a bewildering, a terrible problem still confronted the 
great lady; with what surprise, with what agitation she 
realized that Fandor was in her house, and must be there, 
the very terms of his letter showed it, disguised as Fanto¬ 
mas—in the same disguise as Tom Bob? There were two 
“Fantomas” then among the dancers, the American detective 
and Jerome Fandor. 


188 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

It was quite possible, quite probable indeed, as she soon 
came to see. The costumes the detective and the journalist 
had donned must obviously be alike, if they were correct: 
was it not therefore allowable to suppose there were two 
“Fantomas” in the rooms without anyone having so far 
noted the fact: naturally people would conclude it was the 
same masquer they saw each time. Why, she herself was 
deceived just now, believing herself in the presence of 
Fantomas-Tom Bob, when she was actually standing before 
Fantomas-Fandor! 

Eventually Lady Beltham returned to the dancing rooms, 
thinking to herself: 

“I will go presently into the conservatory; he is sure to 
be watching me and will join me there.” 

While the grand duchess in the retirement of her private 
apartments was reading the strange note slipped into her 
hand by Fandor, who had likewise come, as she had guessed, 
disguised as Fantomas, a diverting scene occurred in the 
dancing rooms below! The fact is Fantomas-Fandor had 
caught sight of another Fantomas. 

“Halloa!” the young man told himself, “someone has 
had the same idea as myself, it’s really capital!” 

Then he disappeared in the crush, ready to keep a watch¬ 
ful eye on Lady Beltham. But now the second Fantomas, 
Fantomas-Tom Bob, had also noted his double, and the 
news was flying fast from mouth to mouth: 

“You know, there are two Fantomas! ... a highly 
original idea, don’t you think?” 

“Why yes, highly original!” all agreed. 

Yet no one observed that not merely two Fantomas 
were at the dance, but perhaps three or four, or even more! 

A few minutes afterwards, the lovely Sonia Danidoff was 
waltzing with one of the men wearing the grim black cowl 
when the second masquer clad in the same tragic garb 
knocked against the couple; a dialogue verging on the 
ludicrous ensued. 

“Sir!” the first Fantomas, Sonia’s partner, was saying, 
“I think it a very bold proceeding to have adopted my 
costume!” 

“And why so, sir?” restorted the other Fantomas in 
the same emphatic tone. 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 


189 

“Because, sir, it is a heavy costume, and a dangerous 
one, to wear! No brigand, save myself, had ever dreamt 
of adopting it till you.” 

To this the second masquer replied in a tone of raillery: 
“You are in the wrong to complain, sir; it would more 
become me to protest against your audacity. You are an 
impostor, you carry a disguise. 1 am the genuine Fan¬ 
tomas 1” 

“Easy talking, sir!” 

“Easier still to prove, sir!” 

“So it’s a quarrel, is it; we must settle between us, arms 
in hand?” 

“As you please, sir!” 

“Now, at once?” 

“At once!” 

A laughing group had gathered round, finding a new 
and piquant diversion in this altercation between the two 
masquers, each defending with apparent seriousness his 
title to be the true Fantomas. 

“The vanquished,” cried Sonia, merrily, “shall take off 
his cowl for the rest of the evening.” 

At this one of the disputants wheeled round, and in 
answer to the gibe: 

“No, madam,” he said, “the vanquished will not appear 
again, for one good reason—he will be dead.” 

“Madam, I will use no empty words of compliment to 
thank you for granting me this interview. Words are 
incapable of translating my feelings, and between us they 
would be yet more vain than with others.” 

The “Fantomas” who uttered the words bowed low with 
infinite respect before the Grand Duchess Alexandra, whom 
he had just come upon in one of the little nooks of greenery, 
so quiet and retired, so convenient for flirtations or confi¬ 
dential talks, which the great lady had contrived in the 
superb winter garden, opening out of her drawing rooms. 
The masquer went on: 

“I will not thank you, madam, for on us, alas! weighs a 
past too heavy to allow soft words to do aught but call 
up sad memories in our hearts. That past you do not disown 
any more than I do, but I ask your permission to remember 
in speaking to you two facts, that you, you, the Grand 


190 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

Duchess Alexandra, are Lady Beltham, and that I, under 
this travesty of Fantomas, am Jerome Fandor.” 

In a weak, trembling voice, Lady Beltham questioned: 

“Speak, sir! But first, why this disguise? why, why 
do you, you of all men, wear that cowl?” 

“Because, that mask, madam,” returned Fandor, in a 
broken voice, “that mask lets me remain nameless among 
your guests. Probably you forget, Lady Beltham, that 
at this present moment Jerome Fandor is held by general 
consent to be a criminal. And, besides this, madam, yet 
another reason—you will forgive my naming it—led me 
to adopt this disguise. Was I not certain you would accord 
a few minutes’ talk to the man wearing this costume. I 
could not tell if it would be possible for me to give you the 
letter; but I felt convinced if as Fantomas I asked to speak 
wth you, you would not refuse your lover three minutes’ 
conversation.” 

Lady Beltham, pale and trembling, made no reply— 
what answer could the unhappy lady find to give Fandor, 
the man who at that very time was suffering the direst 
torments at the hands of the real Fantomas, her lover? 
She could only repeat again: “Speak, sir, what do you want 
of me?” 

“A small thing, madam,” returned Fandor, “a small 
thing, and yet of infinite moment— happiness. I am going 
to beg you to say three words—three words that will 
assure me the chiefest joy of my life.” 

Almost on the defensive, in a voice of fear, Lady Beltham 
said for the third time: “Speak, sir, speak!” 

“Madam,” Fandor resumed in trembling accents, “I 
love deeply, with all my heart and all my soul, an unhappy 
young girl whose name you know, for it bears a melancholy 
renown. Elisabeth Dollon, I mean. Madam, by your 
lover’s doing—nay, never protest, all denial is in vain be¬ 
tween us—by your lover’s doing, I, I Jerome Fandor, am 
deemed by Elisabeth Dollon, as by all men, to be Fan¬ 
tomas. She would love me if she knew me innocent, now 
she hates me, fears me, flies from me! Madam, I have 
always been to you, and even to him who is dear to you, 
an honourable foe, the dreadful penalty I suffer to-day as 
the result of the war I wage is the more cruel as it is 
undeserved. What hurt can it do you, Lady Beltham, 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 


191 

what hurt can it do Fantomas, even should I enjoy a little 
happiness, should I win Elisabeth’s love? . . . This is the 
prayer I would make to you; she is single-hearted, she is 
enthusiastic, she sacrifices my life to you; madam, I pray 
you, I beseech you, go to Elisabeth and tell her I am 
not Fantomas, and that she can love me!” 

Such profound feeling inspired Jerome Fandor’s words, 
his voice vibrated with such deep emotion, as he spoke, that 
Lady Beltham herself could not help being greatly moved. 
Yes, Jerome Fandor was surely right, he had always been 
an honourable enemy. Surely he was right again in de¬ 
scribing his position with Elisabeth as horrible. Surely 
again, what harm could it do Fantomas for him to enjoy 
a little happiness? 

Lady Beltham was touched, won over; she burst out 
suddenly: 

“I know you are Jerome Fandor, sir; I know it, and I 
need only know that! I decline to understand the allu¬ 
sions you have made. But if you beseech the Grand Duchess 
Alexandra to go to Elisabeth Dollon, the grand duchess is 
verily too much your friend, too well persuaded of the 
depth of your love for Mile. Dollon, to refuse the boon 
you ask of her.” 

“Oh! madam,”—and Fandor, with a quick almost in¬ 
stinctive movement, seized Lady Beltham’s white, ungloved 
hand. But the great lady drew back, manifestly she could 
not prolong for ever her talk with this masquer, this “Fan¬ 
tomas.” None had come to disturb them, but their 
conversation was bound to have attracted notice; the place 
was lined with mirrors, they were at the mercy of every 
chance reflection. 

“Where can I see Elisabeth Dollon?” asked the grand 
duchess. 

“The poor girl,” replied the other, “in spite of her ene¬ 
mies, still lives an honest, hard-working life; I know—I 
learnt this only a day or two ago—she is engaged as cashier, 
I think at one of the restaurants in the Bois, the restaurant 
on the island in the lake.” 

Lady Beltham had already risen and was moving away 
when she threw these words by way of adieu to the young 
man: 

“By all I hold most sacred, sir, I swear that Elisabeth 


192 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

Dollon, no later than to-morrow evening, shall know that 
Jerome Fandor is worthy of her love.” 

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur Fantomas!” 

“You mean?” 

“I mean to say that costume is heavy for your shoulders.” 

After Lady Beltham’s departure, Jerome Fandor had 
stayed behind in the conservatory, motionless, wrapt in 
absorption. The great lady’s promise had given him the 
wildest hopes. If the grand duchess saw fit to convince 
Elisabeth Dollon of his innocence, it was easy enough for 
her to do so; if she kept her promise, and Jerome Fandor 
never doubted she would, a happy future, a future of love 
lay before him! But as he was thinking these rosy thoughts, 
plunged in an ecstasy of anticipation a disquieting incident 
befell. 

The young man was standing in the centre of the winter- 
garden, on the very spot where he had talked with Lady 
Beltham. On every side of him, on the walls, between the 
interlacing boughs of palms, araucasias and kentias, hung 
mirrors reflecting his own image and that of his surround¬ 
ings. Now, amid these reflections, appeared one, a second 
“Fantomas,” that moved and gesticulated and presently 
advanced, while the same mocking words, spoken now for 
the second time in the course of the evening, struck on 
Fandor’s ear: 

“That cloak is heavy for your shoulders, sir!” 

The journalist felt a cold sweat bedew his temples. Who 
was this other “Fantomas”? for it was in very truth, a 
second “Fantomas” advancing to meet him! the same 
perhaps he had observed among the dancers just now? 
or else, perhaps, another, or else ... or else. ... In a 
supercilious, defiant tone, Jerome Fandor retorted: 

“If the cloak is heavy for my shoulders, sir, is it, pray, 
any lighter for yours?” 

“They are, at least better used to wearing it.” 

Fandor started at the words, but before he had time to 
answer, suddenly, in an instant, with an unparalleled swift¬ 
ness and violence that disarmed all power of resistance, a 
savage dagger thrust caught him immediately over the heart. 
A red mist blinded the young man’s eyes, as he staggered 
under the force of the blow. A buzzing filled his ears, and a 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 


193 


curse, a cry of fury, escaped his quivering lips. Then slowly 
the place began to turn round and round, darkening and 
taking on fantastic shapes; Jerome Fandor was fainting. 

But he was too energetic, too brave a man, to lose con¬ 
sciousness for long. Three seconds after the blow was 
struck, his senses were returning to him. “Fantomas! 
Fantomas!” he stammered: “it was the real Fantomas 
stood there before me!” He struggled painfully to his 
knees, then rose to his feet in spite of the sharp pain, and 
forced himself to look round—the conservatory was empty! 
Stumbling forward, he took two or three steps, his hand 
pressed to his breast, then sank into a rocking-chair, mut¬ 
tering in a weak and still bewildered voice: 

“Lucky for me, all the same, the coat of mail I took 
the precaution to wear under my disguise withstood the 
stab! I knew, when I put on this Fantomas costume, I 
was risking the brigand’s anger; I was well advised to 
guard against it as I did. Verily, I believe this time I have 
looked death close in the face!” 

Meantime in the ballrooms the festivities were still in 
full swing while these untoward events were happening in 
the winter-garden, but at last the dance was now drawing 
to a close. Four o’clock was striking, and the wan, pallid 
light of day peeped in at the doors half open into the park: 
the loveliest faces began to look faded, the smoothest locks 
ruffled, it was time for pretty women to beat a retreat, 
under pain of seeming positively plain. 

Then suddenly, no one knowing whence the news came, 
all stood frozen in rigid horror at a dreadful report that 
circulated from group to group. There was a general rush 
for the park, while broken phrases passed between the 
hurrying guests. 

“Wounded?” 

“Dead!” 

“You are sure, madam?” 

“It was a chauffeur found the body.” 

“Yes, a dagger was still stuck in the heart.” 

“Appalling!” 

“So it wasn’t Tom Bob, then?” 

“Who was the victim?” 

“It is not known.” 

“Where are the ‘Fantomas’?” 


194 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“One of them has just gone.” 

“Who? which?” 

“The cloak-room attendant recognized him; it was Tom 
Bob.” 

“It seems he was wounded?” 

“Yes, the attendant said he had blood on his sleeve; 
he had actually turned back the sleeve and looked at his 
arm; there was a long, red gash there.” 

“But Tom Bob is no assassin!” 

“Ah! but was it really Tom Bob? that is just the 
question, my dear sir.” 

Fandor still lay exhausted in the conservatory, still dazed 
from the attempt on his life he had only just escaped. But 
in a moment he sprang up with a start, the Grand Duchess 
Alexandra, Lady Beltham, stood before him. She looked 
agitated, she was panting and frightfully pale. 

“Fly! fly!” she cried distractedly. 

Jerome Fandor looked at the great lady in wide-eyed 
astonishment. 

“Fly! fly!” she could only repeat. “Oh! for pity’s sake, 
begone! It is horrible, appalling they have just found in 
the park a man dressed as Fantomas lying dead, stabbed to 
the heart—an officer of the Criminal Investigation Bureau!” 

Fandor listened without a word, while Lady Beltham went 
on again, wringing her hands: 

“But fly, I tell you, fly! Don’t you understand they 
will accuse you? You were seen just now, dressed as 
Fantomas, leaving the rooms with another ‘Fantomas’, 
they will make sure the first masquer was the murderer, 
that is you!” 

Still dazed as he followed Lady Beltham, who was leading 
him towards a hidden door, Fandor asked: 

“But then there were three ‘Fantomas’?—Tom Bob, 
myself, this officer?” 

“There were four or five,” replied Lady Beltham, “I 
cannot tell how many: there was you, there was Tom 
Bob, there was an officer of the Bureau . . . there was. 

Fandor finished the sentence the grand duchess dared 
not complete. “There was . . . there was,” he hesitated, 
“there must have been the true Fantomas!” 

A malediction rose to Jerome Fandor’s lips, but all ready 


FANTOMAS MEETS FANTOMAS 


195 


to make his escape as Lady Beltham urged him, he yet 
stayed his flight an instant; he had heard, like a benison 
the unhappy woman murmur a parting word. 

“To-morrow, to-morrow! I have promised you Elisabeth 
shall know you are innocent!” 


CHAPTER XVIII 
“fantomas speaking !” 

M. Havard was almost apologetic, almost polite, a fact 
which in his case was proof positive of the deepest respect. 
Habitually plain-spoken, accustomed to give orders in clear, 
precise terms, and to ask questions in a more downright 
fashion, still, M. Havard appeared for once to be making 
heroic efforts to preserve a respectful, deferential attitude. 

“My carriage is not over and above luxurious,” he was 
saying, pointing to the inside of the brougham in which 
he had just taken his seat in company with a personage of 
a keen, anxious-looking countenance, but you must know 
that, to make up, it is one of the safest.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It means that, copying the Emperor of Germany, I have 
taken the precaution, Monsieur le Ministre, to have the 
woodwork lined with steel plates. In my carriage one is 
secure against the latest and most approved revolvers, the 
sharpest daggers.” 

The Minister smiled approvingly. “And that is always 
something!” he laughed. 

“Yes, it is indeed something,” M. Havard proceeded, 
“when, like me, a man is continually exposed to acts of 
vengeance, of reprisal, the object of ill-will and hatred.” 

But it was pretty plain the Minister was paying but a 
divided attention to M. Havard’s remarks. 

“Quite right,” he said, in an indifferent voice; “yes, I 
admire your precautions; you were certainly well inspired 
to fortify your carriage in this way. . . . But come now, 
tell me what line you propose to adopt with this indi¬ 
vidual?” 

“The individual we are going to see?” 

“Precisely, this man Tom Bob . . . this Tom Bob who 
would seem to be Fantomas—ridiculous as the supposition 
may appear at first sight.” 


196 


FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 


197 


On hearing this remark, M. Havard was suddenly af¬ 
flicted with a very convenient tickling in the throat. He 
said nothing—the Head of the Investigation Department 
would, under no circumstances, have taken upon himself 
to contradict a Minister of State, but . . . well, he coughed. 
And to cough, in all the languages of the world, has always 
indicated that a man would not be disinclined to prove 
his interlocutor mistaken in the opinions he is enunciating 
in his presence. 

Observing the police official’s hesitation, the Minister 
insisted: 

“Why, yes, Tom Bob must be Fantomas! The thing 
is self-evident, obvious; don’t you think so, too, Havard?” 

For, impossible as it seemed to admit that Tom Bob 
was really Fantomas, the Minister had almost come to 
believe it—to wish to believe it at any rate, since the tragic 
events of the previous night! On the other hand, M. Ha¬ 
vard, more accustomed to think things out coldly and 
impartially, to weigh the arguments for and against a 
proposition, was less convinced. “Events,” he reflected, 
“do certainly seem to show Tom Bob to be Fantomas. 
But there are so many facts on the other side that go to 
prove the contrary that we must not rush to so extravagant 
a conclusion. Deuce take it, Tom Bob is a police-officer 
—an officer of repute in America; he has already, here in 
Paris, since his arrival, effected some telling arrests. . . . 
No, he cannot be Fantomas! If appearances are against 
him, they are, after all, only appearances, probably con¬ 
trived by the real Fantomas. It is true. . . .” 

M. Havard broke off his reflections to answer the Minis¬ 
ter’s question: 

“Alas! sir, in all these baffling difficulties, I really do 
not know what I think.” 

“A very canny answer.” 

“But a sincere one, sir.” 

“Sincere, why, yes, I grant you; but surely not very 
frank. However, I will force you to give a plain reply— 
yes or no, do you believe Tom Bob is the murderer?” 

M. Havard coughed again; it was evidently a chronic 
complaint, this cough of his! Finally, sinking back in 
discouragement on the cushions and nervously cracking his 
finger joints, he confessed in a dubious voice: 


198 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

“Believe 1 what do I believe? . . . well, I just make 
guesses, Monsieur le Ministre.” 

“But, my dear man, you told me yourself . . .” then 
breaking off again, the Minister started afresh. 

“Come, tell me the exact particulars—I have so much 
business on my mind there are times when I cannot trust 
my own memory—tell me the precise results of your investi¬ 
gations. You were saying that yesterday. . . 

This time, when it became a question of setting out the 
results of a police investigation, without deducing the 
consequences, without drawing any compromising conclu¬ 
sion, M. Havard recovered all his usual coolness, all the 
peremptory tone of authority that was habitual with him. 
So it was with perfect lucidity, with the strictest logical 
precision, he now answered the Minister. 

“My investigation has established nothing absolutely 
definite. All it justifies us in doing is to specify certain 
facts, relevant facts I admit, but in no way conclusive.” 

“And these facts are? . . 

“These facts are as follows: Yesterday, the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra gave a ball, a costume ball. At this 
costume ball were several ‘Fantomas.’ How many, pre¬ 
cisely, it is impossible, sir, for me to inform you; I have 
not been able to ascertain the number. On more than one 
occasion, this is certain, two masked figures, two ‘Fanto- 
mas’ were seen talking together, which would go to prove 
there were two ‘Fantomas’; but after all, this is not posi¬ 
tively certain, for because two men in black cowls have 
been seen, it obviously does not follow there were no others 
elsewhere in the rooms. . . .” 

“But why this hypothesis?” 

“Why? h’m! because. . . . Anyhow, sir, let us remember 
this fact, this primary fact—two ‘Fantomas,’ exactly alike, 
two disguises of identical shape and make, attended the 
Grand Duchess Alexandra’s fete. Very good, but who and 
what were they? Here we enter the domain at once of 
certainties and hypotheses. One certainly we have—one 
of these masquers was Tom Bob; he was seen, recognized, 
identified by name. The second of these masqued men, 
and here we have another, a melancholy, certainty, was an 
agent of the Criminal Bureau, one of our excellent officers, 
indeed, Inspector Joffre—he was the man they found subse- 


“FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 199 

quently, you know, under the trees in the garden, stabbed 
to the heart.” 

“And he was the man,” affirmed the Minister, “who was 
seen to go off with Tom Bob, with the other ‘Fantomas,’ 
after a laughing colloquy, in which our agent, like Tom Bob, 
had claimed to be actually and indeed the ever-elusive 
brigand. From which I infer. . . .” 

But M. Havard made a gesture of dissent: 

“Yes, you infer, sir, but you go too fast in your infer¬ 
ences. What precisely occurred between the moment when 
Tom Bob as ‘Fantomas’ arrived at the grand duchess’s, a 
little before our agent Joffre, also disguised as a ‘Fant6mas, > 
and that when the unfortunate officer was found dead, mur¬ 
dered? It would be hard to say. You remember the 
laughing dispute that took place between the two ‘Fanto- 
mas’? That dispute actually took place; my investigation 
has enabled me to find many who can vouch for it, amongst 
other witnesses the Princess Sonia Danidoff. I do not dis¬ 
pute it, but you miss one point, Monsieur le Ministre, and 
that is that when the two men made a pretence of going 
into the park to settle their difference arms in hand, both 
wore the sinister black cowl, and could not therefore be 
recognized, and that in consequence there is nothing to 
justify our alleging that the man who was with the 
unfortunate Joffre was really Tom Bob.” 

“Why, yes, there is one thing. . . .” 

“Namely, sir?” 

“Why, think, the incident in the cloak room. . . .” 

M. Havard smiled. 

“I do not forget it!” he cried, “yes, the cloak room 
incident does constitute a serious impeachment against 
Tom Bob, a terribly serious impeachment. But you re¬ 
member the exact details, sir?” 

“I think so! Come, now, events happened thus. . . 

“I will detail them precisely as they did happen. At 
the very moment at which the chauffeur found the murdered 
Joffre’s body in the gardens, the rumour was circulating 
among the dancers, a well-founded rumour, that Tom 
Bob, Tom Bob, still wearing his ‘Fantomas’ costume, 
had just left. If we are to credit the cloak room attendant, 
he had come in a few minutes before to claim back the 
black mantle that covered his shoulders on his first arrival, 


200 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


and which he had entrusted to the man’s care in the 
course of the evening. Now, as he put on the garment, 
Tom, Bob would appear to have mentioned that he was 
wounded in the arm, and on the man expressing surprise, 
he would seem to have gone on to say: ‘It’s the penalty 
for having chosen to play up a bit too hard against the real 
Fantomas.’ Then, still going by what the attendant says, 
he seems to have pulled up his sleeve, unbuttoned his 
cuff, and—the cloak room was empty at the moment—ex¬ 
amined a deep cut on his arm, half way between shoul¬ 
der and elbow, to be precise, a cut apparently made by 
a knife, and which, moreover, was still bleeding freely. 
Tom' Bob seems after that to have pulled down the 
sleeve again, declaring it was a trifle, and so taken his 
departure.” 

M. Havard fell silent, the Minister seemed to be thinking, 
then suddenly he asked: 

“Monsieur Havard, why do you speak in the conditional 
mood? . . . Tom Bob would appear to have done such 
and such a thing, said such and such a thing: seems to 
have taken his departure! So you don’t believe the witness 
to be trustworthy?” 

This time, M. Havard’s habit of plain speaking took the 
upper hand, and it was in a tone by no means over and 
above respectful that he replied: 

“Oh, yes, I do! The witness is telling the truth, the 
story is quite correct. But if I do speak in the conditional, 
the real fact is all these happenings, all this evidence 
about the wound, is so ... so odd, so improbable, 
that . . .” 

“How improbable?” protested the Minister, “Why, sir, 
if Joffre was murdered, I take it he was not killed without 
defending himself; even if he received a mortal blow quite 
unexpectedly, he could have struck back, wounded Tom 
Bob, wounded his assailant. . . .” 

In a tone of raillery, M. Havard finished the other’s 
sentence: 

“ . . . And Fantomas could have committed the im¬ 
prudence of boasting of it in the cloak room? But, my 
dear sir, that is foolishness, utter foolishness! I won’t so 
much as think of it! If Tom Bob was Joffre’s murderer, 
he would be Fantomas; if he was Fantomas, he would 


“FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 


201 


never have been guilty of the mad inconsistency of showing 
his wound to a witness.” 

M. Havard’s objection was evidently well founded, the 
whole story was undoubtedly baffling. But the Minister 
still refused to confess himself beaten. He believed in 
Tom Bob’s guilt. Had the detective not been seen in 
the “Fantomas” costume? Was he not known to have had 
an altercation with Joffre, to have gone off in his company 
into the gardens, where Joffre had been killed. Nothing, 
if not logical, the Minister drew the conclusion: “Tom Bob 
is the murderer.” 

Then another point struck him, and he added triumph¬ 
antly: 

“Besides, Havard, if Tom Bob were not guilty, why 
should he not have come in answer to your invitation this 
morning?” 

M. Havard shook his head doubtfully, and made no 
answer. This point, raised by the Minister’s last question, 
was precisely what most exercised the head of the Investi¬ 
gation Department. When at an early hour he had been 
awakened by a ring on the telephone and a message from 
the Commissary’s office at the Parc des Princes, telling 
him that a new and appalling crime had just been committed 
by Fantomas, a crime that was spreading frantic terror 
among the members of Parisian society, a crime that it 
seemed must be set down to Tom Bob, M. Havard had 
come to several important decisions. He telephoned im¬ 
mediately to the Prefecture to send officers of the Depart¬ 
ment to shadow the Hotel Terminus, where Tom Bob was 
still in residence. For himself, he set off at once to the 
Grand Duchess Alexandra’s. There he had, with his usual 
ability and acumen, held a rapid investigation, in the 
course of which he had discovered certain facts, facts if 
not directly relevant, at least suggestive. 

On leaving the villa in the Parc des Princes, M. Havard 
hurried to the Ministry of Justice. It was eight o’clock 
when the head of the Criminal Bureau reached the Minister’s 
private apartments. By dint of eager representations to 
the ushers on duty and a like insistence with the ministerial 
attaches , he obtained immediate audience of M. Desire 
Ferrand’s successor. A few moments more and he was 
closeted with the Minister of Justice, and was rapidly 


202 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


narrating, almost without drawing breath, the extraordinary 
events of the previous evening. 

“Monsieur le Ministre,” M. Havard concluded, “I 
deemed it expedient to put you in possession of the facts 
at once, in order to save myself from incurring too heavy 
a load of responsibility; at this present moment a man 
is suspected, and reasonably suspected; this man is Tom 
Bob, the American detective. Unless we arrest him, public 
opinion, alarmed, agitated, terror-stricken, is going to cause 
us the most troublesome embarrassments; questions will 
be asked in the House, for certain! On the other hand, to 
arrest Tom Bob is a serious step; he is an American citizen, 
a foreigner, and will no doubt claim the protection of his 
consul and involve us in diplomatic difficulties. In fact, 
to arrest the man seems a monstrous thing to do.” 

The Minister, after a few minutes’ thought, advised M. 
Havard to despatch a special messenger to see Tom Bob 
and beg him to come at once to the Ministry of Justice 
where the Minister wished to speak to him. But the mes¬ 
senger had been to the Hotel Terminus, had seen Tom Bob, 
and had brought back the answer: 

“Mr. Bob directs me to say he is very tired, almost ill, 
and cannot be disturbed.” 

Neither Havard nor the Minister could make anything 
of it, and while the former was still marvelling at the 
amazing attitude the American detective had chosen to 
adopt in refusing to obey the personal invitation of a 
Minister of State, under the flimsy excuse of fatigue, the 
Minister insisted: 

“You must admit, M. Havard, that this refusal to come 
and see me is, to say the least, extraordinary. Why, deuce 
take it, if Tom Bob was not wounded, that is to say, was 
not guilty, that is to say, had not pressing reasons for 
not showing himself just now, he would have come along 
here post haste. How did he know I was not meaning to 
decorate him?” 

M. Havard laughed frankly at the great man’s little 
joke; he was still laughing when the brougham stopped at 
the door of the Hotel Terminus. 

“Whatever you do,” the Minister observed, as they got 
out, “whatever you do, address me as ‘my dear fellow,’ from 
now on. I don’t at all like the idea of that American being 


“FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 203 

able to boast of having put out a Minister of France. I 
mean to preserve the strictest incognito.” 

M. Havard handed his card to a waiter, bidding him go 
and inform Mr. Tom Bob that he desired a few minutes’ 
conversation with him; then, after the man had gone, he 
assured his companion: 

“Do not be afraid, Monsieur le Ministre . . . beg par¬ 
don! ... do not be afraid, my dear fellow: nobody shall 
guess who you are.” 

“Monsieur Havard, I was expecting you”—smiling, 
cheerful, debonair, not the very least like a sick or tired 
man, Tom Bob welcomed M. Havard in one of the small 
sitting rooms of the hotel. 

“You were expecting me, my dear colleague?” 

“Certainly!” 

Then, as Tom Bob was drawing up seats, and his eyes 
fell on the Minister, M. Havard thought it needful to add: 
“Allow me to introduce my senior secretary.” 

The American vouchsafed a little supercilious smile for 
this subordinate. “Delighted, sir, delighted to meet you!” 
and he turned again to M. Havard, resuming: 

“I was expecting you, because I supposed the Minister, 
having sent for me this morning and finding I did not come, 
would send someone to see me.” 

The opportunity was too good a one for verifying an 
important point for M. Havard to neglect: 

“You were right, quite right in your supposition. But, 
by-the-by, why did you not come to the Ministry?” 

A smile appeared on Tom Bob’s lips; with his usual 
phlegm he answered M. Havard: 

“And pray, why should I have gone?” 

The reply was so startling in its quiet unconcern that 
the Head of the Criminal Bureau was struck dumb for a 
moment. However, he quickly recovered his self-posses¬ 
sion and answered back: 

“Why, my dear sir, because . . . because when a Minister 
sends for one, surely one ought to take the trouble to 
obey.” 

But Tom Bob, quite unruffled, only shrugged his 
shoulders. Taking a cigarette from his case, he lit it with¬ 
out a sign of embarrassment, then: 


204 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“You think so?” he said, “well, I think the opposite! 
If we differ in our ideas, it is probably because you, M. 
Havard, are you, purely French: and I, Tom Bob, equally 
American.” 

“Which means?” 

“Which means,” concluded the detective, with his Yankee 
bluntness, “that having nothing to say to the Minister, 
I did not feel any need to go and see him, and I considered 
if he wanted to speak to me, that he might very well take 
the trouble to come as far as the Hotel Terminus.” 

Listening to this speech of the phlegmatic American, 
M. Havard turned first pale, then green, sorely embarrassed 
as he remembered they were spoken actually before the 
Minister’s very face. The interview was taking an un¬ 
pleasant complexion and it was best to push into other 
matters: “Tell me, my dear Bob,” he asked by way of 
turning the conversation, and getting back to serious af¬ 
fairs, “you can guess, I take it, why I have come this 
morning?” 

Immediately Tom Bob’s face lost its look of calm un¬ 
concern; it was evident a genuine curiosity pricked the 
detective as he replied: 

“Upon my word, I don’t, Monsieur Havard! I know 
nothing at all about it, though I must confess it interests 
me very greatly . . . Could I be of any use to you, I 
wonder?” 

The Head of the Criminal Bureau, after a moment’s 
pause, and speaking sharply and incisively in a way to 
throw the other off his guard: 

“Useful?” he exclaimed, “yes, you can be very useful 
to me”—and, almost showing his cards, he demanded: 

“I expect you to give me an explanation of last night’s 
events.” 

“Last night’s events?” 

“Yes, the tragedy that happened at the Grand Duchess 
Alexandra’s.” 

“A tragedy happened?” 

“In a word, I want you to tell me how your wound is.” 

“My wound?. . . why, you are gone crazy, Monsieur 
Havard!” 

“Crazy indeed! but, now . . .” 

“What on earth are you talking about now?” Tom 


“FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 205 

Bob’s face wore such an expression of amazement, stupe¬ 
faction, utter lack of comprehension, that with one accord 
M. Havard and the Minister, who had to hold himself in 
hand hard to keep his lips shut, sprang up and faced the 
detective. 

“But,” screamed M. Havard, boiling over with exas¬ 
peration, “but you are not, I presume, going to deny that 
yesterday evening you were at the Grand Duchess Alex¬ 
andra’s ball?” 

Tom Bob struck his breast in perfectly unaffected 
surprise. 

“I?” he stammered, “/ was at the Grand Duchess 
Alexandra’s ball!” 

“Egad! yes: as Fantomas, come now!” 

“And as Fantomas! But, really, Monsieur Havard, I 
don’t understand one word you are saying. I have never 
been in the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s house, neither 
at her dance, nor at any other time: neither yesterday, nor 
ever before!” 

“And you are not wounded?” 

“Wounded where?” 

“In the arm.” 

Tom Bob took off his coat and pulled up both his shirt¬ 
sleeves. 

“There, look!” he cried, “where can you see a wound?” 
—and he passed his hand across his forehead, exclaiming: 

“Why, whatever do you mean, in God’s name! I think 
I must be dreaming!” 

This time, M. Havard and the Minister gazed at each 
other in doubt and bewilderment. Tom Bob was not 
wounded! Tom Bob had not been at the grand duchess’s 
ball! Tom Bob was dumbfounded at the mere mention 
of their suspicions. It was beyond everything. 

Then the Minister took up his parable. “Listen, Mon¬ 
sieur Bob,” he said “we are not crazy. This is what 
occurred, this is what we believed . . .” 

At great length, with details confirmed by M. Havard, 
with endless comments, the Minister narrated the whole 
incomprehensible imbroglio of the preceding evening, and 
at the end waited anxiously for the detective to speak. 

“Come now,” he demanded, “do you understand any¬ 
thing about it all?” 


206 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


Tom Bob shook his head. “No!” he declared, in a 
preoccupied tone of voice and with a meditative air, “no, 
I know nothing—or rather, from what you tell me, M. 
Havard, and you, Monsieur le Ministre . . .” 

But at this mention of his rank, the Minister started 
violently. “What!” he exclaimed, “then you know?” 

“Yes, sir! yes, I know. Pardon me, but I know per¬ 
fectly well I have the honour to address the Minister of 
Justice. Egad, with Tom Bob, I assure you, there is no 
incognito can last long. But enough of that—I was going 
to tell you there is only one thing I do understand in 
all these tragic and bloody accidents that befell at the 
grand duchess’s ball . . .” 

“And that is?” 

“Just this,” declared the detective, “that Fantomas 
was present at the ball and that Fantomas made himself 
out to be me, Tom Bob: that it was actually Fantomas 
who was wounded, that he boasted of it out of a criminal’s 
vanity who takes his impunity as a matter of course. And, 
that he committed a blunder, after all, for this wound in 
the arm will help us to identify him the more easily.” 

But now, as Tom Bob finished speaking, the Minister 
and M. Havard exchanged a meaning look; both had been 
struck by the same idea. 

“Egad!” M. Havard spoke in a low voice, almost as 
if talking to himself, “egad! if Mr. Bob is right, we 
shall have the means, once and for all, of clearing up all 
these matters. Fantomas is in prison, Fantomas is Juve 
. . . if Juve is wounded!” 

But the Minister broke in: “Yes, Havard, you are 
right; Juve is Fantomas, then it is Juve must be wounded. 
But inasmuch as Juve is in the Sante prison, inasmuch as 
Juve is in gaol, he was not, he could not be, at the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra’s ball yesterday!”—and as if the 
better to strengthen his conviction, the Minister repeated 
in a loud, emphatic voice: 

“Fantomas is in gaol! What the deuce, Fantomas is 
in gaol!” 

Tom Bob was going to reply, when the door opened, 
and a man-servant put in his head to announce: 

“If you please, Monsieur Bob, you are wanted at the 
’phone—someone who declines to give his name.” 


“FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 


207 

The detective got up, took two or three steps as if to 
leave the room, then observing there was a telephone in¬ 
strument standing on a side-table near at hand, he told 
the servant: “Very good, my man, put me through here, 
will you?”—and turning to the Minister and M. Havard, 
who sat buried in their own thoughts: “Excuse me,” he 
said, as he unhooked the receiver. 

But he had hardly put the receiver to his ear before 
Tom Bob started violently. 

“One second!” he cried, “hello, just a second! will you 
hold the line? I’m shutting a door so as to hear you 
better.” 

The detective laid down the receiver and turning quickly 
to the Minister and M. Harvard, he said in a mocking 
voice: 

“Fantomas is in gaol, you say? what a mistake! Do 
you know who is telephoning me at this moment?” 

“Not I!” said the Minister, looking up. 

Tom Bob answered in half-a-dozen words, spoken with 
all his usual phlegm, without so much as raising his voice: 

“Well, the person now speaking to me is just simply 
the man—just Fantomas!” 

And as the Minister and M. Havard looked at one another 
incredulously, the detective, turning the instrument round, 
politely offered one of the two receivers to the Minister, 
keeping the other himself, and proceeded with the conver¬ 
sation over the wires: 

“Hello! Yes, I’m back again now; it is I, Tom Bob, 
speaking. You say—will I excuse you for having borrowed 
my personality? Why, certainly; it would be very poor 
taste not to forgive you, Fantomas, for I must own it was 
a stroke of genius! Hello! yes—you want to make it up 
to me for the liberty you took? Yes, thank you. Hello 1 
what say? D’you mind repeating. Oh! you tell me, in 
order to let me win a score off you in the eyes of 
the Criminal Department, that to-night, this very evening, 
something will be doing at the Restaurant Azais . . . what 
o’clock? . . . seven! . . . very good, thank you again!— 
I’ll make a careful note of it ... I shall be there . . . 
hello! hello! are you there?” 

But a blunder of the telephone girl had cut off connection, 
and henceforth it was in vain Tom Bob repeated his 


208 the long arm of fantomas 

hello! hello! There was no answer. So he put down the 
receiver, while the Minister also hung up his. 

“Well!” remarked• the detective, “you see, sir, we are 
on the best of terms.” 

The Minister seemed to be living in a nightmare; he 
thought he was dreaming, perhaps going demented, and 
it was in a weak voice he answered: 

“But it’s a joke, all this, eh, Mr. Bob? It is not 
Fantomas ^phoning to you, come now!” 

The detective shrugged: “Not Fantomas?” he said. 
“Then who is it? . . . who do you think it is?” 

“Fantomas would never tell you beforehand he was going 
to commit a crime at this restaurant in the Bois.” 

“Pooh! if he's sure, once more, of not being arrested?” 

“No matter that! it would be too audacious; come, now, 
Mr. Bob, you won’t go?” 

“Oh, yes! I shall, sir! I shall be there.” 

The Minister was thinking; suddenly he went on: 

“Well, if you go, by all I hold most sacred, I will go 
too! Yes, I will go! it shall never be said . . 

Tom Bob turned to M. Havard: “And you, my dear 
colleague, will you come? You seem, pensive for the 
moment?” 

M. Havard indeed—from Tom Bob’s answers he had 
quite well gathered, or at any rate guessed, what Fantomas 
probably said—was thinking deeply. 

“Oh!” he declared at last, “yes, I shall certainly go; 
but it will be without over much belief in the thing.” 

“Why so?” 

“Because . . . because it was a practical joker telephoned 
you.” 

“A practical joker? No, I don’t think that.” 

“I do!” declared M. Havard, who was getting annoyed, 
“yes, a practical joker! a practical joker, I repeat, for, 
look you, there is one thing you are forgetting, that we 
are all forgetting at present, a fact that is certain, indis¬ 
putable . . .” 

“To wit?” 

“Why, that Fantomas is in prison, that Fantomas is 
in the Santi, and that consequently he could not have done 
murder yesterday, he cannot be telephoning to you now, 
it will be impossible for him to be at the Azdis tomorrow!” 


FANTOMAS SPEAKING!” 


209 


The Minister, who for the last few minutes had been 
getting more and more impatient, laid his hand on M. 
Havard’s shoulder. 

“Listen to me!” he said, “all this is very bewildering, 
so bewildering in fact, that we are forgetting our logic. 
There is one step we must take instantly. Monsieur 
Havard, in coming to see your colleague, to see Mr. Tom 
Bob, we have made a blunder; it is elsewhere we must 
go now. By the Lord, we shall soon see if Juve is 
wounded, we shall soon find out whether he telephoned 
this morning, whether he can go this evening!” 

Before the great man had done speaking, M. Havard 
had clapped on his hat again and slipped on his top-coat. 

“You are right, Monsieur le Ministre,” he declared, 
“let us go there at once.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE PRISONER OF THE SANTE 

It was the hour of general reveillee at the prison of La 
Sante. Along the corridors, still in semi-darkness, tramped 
the warders, jangling their ponderous bunches of keys, on 
their way to wake the prisoners for the morning meal. 
Before the door of the cell where Juve was confined, Herve, 
the turnkey, usually entrusted with the surveillance of the 
ex-detective, stood hesitating, only finally making up his 
mind to go in on hearing the step of a chief warder at the 
far end of the paved passage. 

The door turned slowly on its hinges. As a rule the 
sound of the key turning in the lock was the signal for 
Juve to start wide awake and sit up in his bed, in eager 
expectation of . . . what? Perhaps his release! But alas! 
morning after morning the apparition of the turnkey’s 
sullen) countenance only brought bitter disappointment 
with it. 

But this morning the prisoner did not wake; he was 
sleeping heavily and, if appearances were to be trusted, 
very uneasily. He kept groaning and crying out peevishly, 
muttering incoherently, twisting and turning in his bed, 
waving about his arms, one of which showed stains of 
blood, blood that had run down in two red rivulets over 
his torn shirt and marked the white sheet with little brown 
spots. 

Herve approached the bed and stood looking down at 
the sleeper. The turnkey showed no particular signs of 
surprise at seeing the condition his prisoner was in, but 
wore rather the preoccupied look of a man who cannot 
make up his mind to one course of action more than 
another. Eventually, he shook the sleeper roughly, hauled 
him up by the shoulder into a sitting posture, and when 
the prisoner, though still looking dazed and rubbing his 

210 


THE PRISONER OF THE SANTE 


211 


eyes sleepily, seemed more or less awake, apostrophized 
him angrily: 

“What’s wrong with you? where does that blood come 
from?” 

“Blood? Where do you see any blood?” 

“There, on your arm, on your shirt, on your bed-sheet. 
How came you to hurt yourself?” 

“I don’t know; I hadn’t noticed it before; it must have 
been in the night, I must have torn the skin tossing 
about.” 

“Come, come, that’s an impossible story! What could 
you have done it with?” 

“There, look at the corner of the bed, there’s a blood 
stain there: that’s where I hurt myself, no doubt. I’ve 
had a shocking night—bad dreams, nightmare: my head 
aches, I feel tired out, I must have kicked about ever so 
in my bed, it’s no wonder I knocked the skin off banging 
my arm against one of the iron bars.” 

“H’m! it don’t seem to me just as clear as daylight, 
somehow. Anyway be quick and get dressed, I must report 
to the Governor, and he’ll see what’s best to do.” 

M. Chaigniste, the able and well-known Governor of the 
Sante prison was in his working room, engaged in reading 
through again a report he had drawn up the night before 
on the general condition of his establishment; he was 
rubbing his hands in token of satisfaction, equally pleased 
with the elegance of his own composition and his skill as 
an administrator that had enabled him up to the present 
to avoid any, even the most trifling, of those “affairs” that 
are the bete noire of persons in authority, when the warder 
appeared: “I’ve come, sir, to let you know I found 
Number 55 wounded in his cell when I went there this 
morning.” 

“Number 55! Why, that’s Juve, is it not, the ex-police- 
officer?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“Is it serious?” 

“No, sir, only a bit of a cut on the arm.” 

“Take him to the infirmary; I will go there myself, as 
soon as the doctor arrives.” 

At that very moment a bell tinkled in the Governor’s 


212 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


study; it was the house-porter ’phoning M. Chaigniste that 
Doctor Du Marvier was come for his daily visit. The 
Governor and the practitioner found Juve in the waiting 
room, sitting on a stool, holding his head between his 
hands and puzzling over his wound, which struck him as, 
after all, hard to account for. The doctor tapped him 
lightly on the shoulder. He was a little round man, with 
a merry face, a smile for ever on his lips, the very spirit 
of gaiety, a man to heal his patients by the mere sight of 
his beaming face! “My standing panacea,” he was in the 
habit of saying, “is a funny story.” 

Accordingly it was with a pleasantry he greeted the 
ex-police-officer, with whom he had already come in con¬ 
tact previously to his imprisonment. 

“Well, what’s the matter now? We’re not satisfied 
with the Governor’s treatment of us, eh? so we go and 
try to kill ourselves, is that it?” 

“Doctor,” Juve replied in the same vein; “I could 
very readily dispense with the privilege of being Monsieur 
Chaigniste’s guest, but all the same I can assure you I 
have not the smallest wish in the world to escape his 
hospitality by committing suicide. I am just as much 
surprised as anybody else at the wound in my arm. I can 
only account for it by the supposition that in my sleep 
I knocked up against a corner of my iron bedstead.” 
While speaking, Juve had removed his jacket and turned 
up his shirt sleeve. The wound was plainly visible, a clear 
cut an inch or a trifle over in length on the upper part 
of the arm pointing downwards. The trifling nature of the 
hurt indeed made the doctor’s whimsical suggestion seem 
utterly absurd—a man wanting to kill himself would set 
about the job in quite another fashion. 

But was Juve’s own hypothesis any more probable? 
Was it against the corner of his bed the police-officer had 
hurt himself while asleep? Evidently such was not the 
view taken by the doctor, who after a rapid examination, 
turned to the Governor, saying: 

“The wound is quite superficial, the skin is only slightly 
broken, and if the hurt has bled rather copiously, that is 
only because one or two small veins have been divided. 
With every confidence I can assure you the prisoner’s bed 
has nothing whatever to do with the accident. It is a 


THE PRISONER OF THE SANTE 


213 

cut is in question, and a cut that cannot have been made 
by anything except an implement with a cutting edge. 
A blow, as violent as is assumed, would have produced a 
bruise, a swelling, the blood would have collected under 
the epidermis, might indeed have spurted out, but we 
should never have seen an incision so clean-cut as that.” 

But whilst the doctor was speaking, Juve had turned as 
pale as death; he seemed to have lost all power in his 
limbs and sank down exhausted on a stool. Doctor Du 
Marvier was quick to notice the prisoner’s condition; 
taking his hand he felt his pulse carefully. 

“Tell me,” he said, “is your pulse so slow usually?” 

“No, doctor, I have always supposed myself to have 
a normally rapid pulse, but\o-day I don’t feel quite well, 
I slept very badly last night and I have a violent headache.” 

“Let me see your tongue!” It was quite white, like 
a man’s after a high fever. Then the doctor put his ear 
to the prisoner’s heart; when he raised his head after a 
long auscultation, he had apparently found the solution 
of the problem, for a look of conviction illuminated his 
face. Drawing the Governor on one side, he spoke to him 
in a low voice. What he said must have been of the very 
gravest import for, when he had done, the Governor was 
as pale as Juve himself and seemed to be profoundly 
agitated. M. Chaigniste was turning to the prisoner, no 
doubt intending to question him further, when one of his 
private servants came in to tell him: 

“M. Havard, sir, is waiting in your room to speak to 
you on some very urgent business.” 

“I will go to him,” replied the Governor, and beckoning 
to the warders: 

“Take the man back to his cell,” he ordered, “and keep 
him under observation.” 

M. Havard was much excited. His idea had been to 
follow up his researches regarding the crime committed 
at the grand duchess’s by satisfying himself as to Juve’s 
condition. Inasmuch as it was a proven fact that Fan- 
tomas had been wounded in the arm, if Juve was really 
and truly Fantomas, he argued, Juve must be wounded. 
Accordingly, M. Havard had betaken himself to the Sante 
prison. Well, scarcely had he arrived there before he 
learned that the Governor and the doctor were with Juve, 


214 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


who had been wounded in the night! It was the confirma¬ 
tion of all his hypotheses; it was the new and unexpected 
fact that should bring daylight into a laborious investiga¬ 
tion, hitherto anything but fruitful in results! Juve was 
verily and indeed Fantomas! the ex-detective was the 
most redoubtable of all malefactors! If he showed such 
acuteness and sagacity in unravelling the most tangled 
affairs, it was because the very crimes he brought to light 
he had himself committed! 

Easy to imagine with what impatience the Head of the 
Criminal Bureau awaited M. Chaigniste’s arrival! The 
latter was hardly in the room before he sprang to meet 
him: 

“Juve! What ails him! He is wounded? wounded 
where?” 

The Governor was barely recovered from the agitation 
caused him by the doctor’s startling announcement. So 
it was in a rather shaky voice, and after a moment’s pause 
to recover his self-possession, that he answered: 

“He has given himself a slight, quite a slight wound.” 

“How?” 

“With an implement, knife or penknife, we do not 
yet know which.” 

“Whereabouts is the wound?” 

“In the arm.” 

“Why, the man’s a demon, nothing less!” 

The Governor had no knowledge of the events that had 
occurred the night before at the grand duchess’s, so he 
was quite at a loss as to the meaning of M. Havard’s 
exclamation. In amazement he watched the latter as he 
strode up and down the length of the great room, lost 
apparently in the deepest thought. But his amazement 
grew to stupefaction when M. Havard went on to say: 

“What, can a prisoner contrive to leave your prison 
of an evening and return again before daylight?” 

The question was, indeed, of a sort to rouse M. Chai¬ 
gniste’s indignation. He, the model administrator, he who 
since first he came to the Sante had never had an “affair”; 
he, who was so proud of his staff that he looked upon 
himself as the father of his subordinates; he, who, only 
yesterday, had written a masterly report declaring in good 
set terms that everything was for the best in this best of 


THE PRISONER OF THE SANTE 


215 

all possible prisons; he was suspected of having allowed 
prisoners the possibility of taking their walks abroad in 
the night! “His” prison, it seemed, was a hotel which 
people might quit at will, to go about their private affairs 
and come back again when they had enjoyed their liberty 
long enough! 

He was on the point of returning M. Havard a cutting 
and dignified answer when the latter, guessing his thoughts, 
broke in: 

“Monsieur Chaigniste, I feel convinced all duties are 
performed to perfection in your establishment. But still, 
answer me this question: Does Juve’s cell contain any 
implement capable of making the wound you have noted?” 

The Governor was nonplussed; shaking his head em¬ 
phatically, he declared: 

“I can confidently say no! There are numbers of 
prisoners who, when they are locked up, try to make away 
with themselves, so not only do we search everyone, but 
every article that might be dangerous is removed and the 
cells hold no single thing that could cause a wound, even 
the most trifling.” 

“Then,” M. Havard went on, “if Juve did not hurt 
himself in his cell, he must have left his cell. You see 
that, surely! Now listen, Monsieur Chaigniste, I came 
here this morning to inquire into Juve’s condition. But 
long before your warder opened the prisoner’s cell door 
and saw his bleeding arm, I knew that Juve must be 
wounded, and all I came for was to have my suspicions 
corroborated. A horrible crime was committed last night; 
its author was wounded in the arm; I suspected Juve, 
and Juve is wounded in the arm! Then, I say, Juve did 
that crime! Juve escaped from your prison last night, 
committed a cowardly murder in the middle of a ball, 
killing one of my inspectors, who no doubt had managed 
to penetrate his disguise; then he came back and volun¬ 
tarily put himself under lock and key, in order to provide 
himself an alibi . . 

“Horrible! horrible!” stammered the Governor, quite 
overcome. 

“Yes, it is horrible, but the culprit shall pay dear for 
his misdeeds, for we have him now safe and sure!” 

“Horrible!” again groaned M. Chaigniste. 


2l6 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“Yes, indeed . . . and yet there’s something strikes me 
as strange about the business and makes me hesitate. 
Let us reason it out calmly and quietly. There is one 
quality we cannot deny Juve possesses, and that is intelli¬ 
gence. He must have felt pretty sure the murderer’s 
wounded arm had been noticed at the grand duchess’s; 
he must have seen that it would be proof positive, irrefrag¬ 
able proof of his crime. He was not pursued, he had time 
enough to leave Paris and gain the frontier. That, to my 
eyes, constitutes a problem it is necessary to solve in order 
to hold the key to the mystery, and it seems to me difficult 
to solve it except in favour of my old subordinate.” 

Little by little, M. Chaigniste had succeeded in gathering 
his wits together and reducing his thoughts to some sort of 
order after all the successive shocks he had undergone in 
so short a space of time. He now recalled the startling 
confidence Dr. Du Marvier had whispered in his ear 
and felt it was incumbent in him to share his knowledge 
with M. Havard. 

“I am going to tell you one thing,” he began, after 
some hesitation, “a thing that will possibly help you to 
clear up this mystery. Dr. Du Marvier, after examining 
Juve’s wound, noticed that the prisoner looked pale and 
appeared greatly exhausted; he questioned him, listened to 
his heart, and observed that its action was considerably 
retarded. By what he told me in confidence, all this would 
seem to point to his having been poisoned, very probably 
with hydrate of chloral. But that is, after all, only a 
hypothesis, and besides, I don’t quite see how one could 
establish a connection between this kind of poisoning and 
the wound we are talking about.” 

But at the words, M. Havard sprang up from the chair 
in which he had at last seated himself. 

“What!” he cried, “you don’t see the connection? 
Why, don’t you know that chloral is not only a poison, but 
also a. soporific? Juve would seem, to haye taken a 
soporific? But why? With what object? Not only does 
this not throw light on the mystery, but it makes it still more 
obscure . . . Monsieur Chaigniste, are you sure your staff 
are to be trusted?” 

The Governor threw up his head like a man deeply 
offended, and replied in a grave voice: 


THE PRISONER OF THE SANTE 


217 


“I can answer for them as surely as I can for myself. 
I have carefully studied the characters of all my warders, 
and I can assure you there is not a single one of them on 
whom the fullest and most implicit reliance may not be 
placed.” 

“And since Juve’s incarceration there have been no 
changes? Which is the warder specially in charge of him?” 

“A man called Herve, a man employed here ten years 
or more, and of whose conduct I have never had any but 
excellent reports.” 

“Then, sir, I have one favour left to ask you, to be 
authorized to visit the prisoner in his cell; after that I 
need only thank you for the information you have been so 
good as to give me this morning.” 

The Governor was hardly out of the Infirmary before 
Juve’s wound was summarily attended to, and he was 
then handed over to the warders’ tender mercies. Not 
without the accompaniment of some hearty cuffs, the strait- 
waistcoat was put on and the prisoner was taken back to his 
cell. Juve made no protest, the same state of weakness 
and prostration still continued and reduced him to a con¬ 
dition of unresisting and silent passivity. It was only by 
degrees that he recovered his self-composure and could 
look the new situation in which he found himself in the 
face. His first impulse was to give way to the utter aban¬ 
donment of despair. Alas! even in prison he was not 
secure from his adversary’s machinations! He had thought 
that, after thus depriving him of all power to act, Fantomas 
would be satisfied with the freedom so secured him to pursue 
at his ease the series of his crimes, and would forget the 
existence of his foe. 

But lo! he now found himself once more the prey of 
his savage adversary! For Juve felt no doubt the wound 
in his arm, the distress that tormented his whole body, 
were Fantomas’ work. Fantomas had accomplices inside 
the prison, and it was these confederates who had come at 
night to make a cut on his arm as if he had been wounded, 
after first sending him to sleep by means of the drug the 
debilitating effects of which he still experienced. With 
what object had they so acted? He did not know and he 
could not guess, ponder the matter as he might. But at 


2l8 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


least the fact was certain, undeniable, and it put the crown 
on his calamity! Fantomas had accomplices in his prison! 
The thought never ceased tormenting the unhappy man 
with ever increasing intensity, when suddenly a new idea 
struck him that made him spring up joyfully from his 
chair and stride up and down his narrow cell. 

“If Fantomas has accomplices in the prison, I am bound 
to know them, these same accomplices, they must come 
in contact with me every day,” thought Juve: “but if 
I know them, it will be possible for me to detect them 
and confound their plans. What was the saddest feature 
of my position was that I was powerless, and could expect 
the discovery of the truth only from the efforts of others. 
Now I am going to work for myself, and deep as the mys¬ 
tery may be, I shall clear it up, just because I am so 
resolved to do so.” 

Juve was at this point in his reflections when M. Havard 
entered his cell. At sight of his old Chief the prisoner 
made a movement of recoil. The Head of the Criminal 
Bureau pretended not to see this and took a seat on a 
stool; then he signed to the two warders, who since morn¬ 
ing had been permanently stationed in the cell, to with¬ 
draw, and when they had shut the door behind them, he 
began in these terms: 

“Juve, since this morning, a grave suspicion rests upon 
you; the wound you have on your arm is a very damning 
proof of your guilt.” 

Juve was persuaded that M. Havard was the prime 
mover in his ruin, so that the friendship and devotion he 
bore his Chief previously to his imprisonment had been 
succeeded by something of rancour. 

“Sir,” he replied, “you think you have been clever 
enough already to discover many indications of my guilty 
I make no doubt you will be ingenious enough to discover 
many more. What I am afraid of is that you are not 
clever enough ever to find the proofs of my innocence.” 

“Juve, you are in error in supposing I nourish any fixed 
prejudice against you. You know in what esteem I have 
held you and what friendship I have felt for you? I have 
deplored more than anybody the combination of circum¬ 
stances that led to your arrest, and ever since then I have 
conducted my investigation loyally and without precon- 


THE PRISONER OF THE SANTE 


219 


ceptions. It is highly important in your own interest to 
answer frankly the questions I am going to ask you about 
your wound and your illness in the night . . . now . . 

It was plain from the tone of studied moderation ex¬ 
hibited by M. Havard that the Head of the Criminal 
Bureau desired but one thing, to throw some light on the 
mystery that so distressed them both, and that the informa¬ 
tion M. Chaigniste had given him with regard to the pris¬ 
oner’s having swallowed a strong dose of hydrate of chloral 
had very considerably shaken the conviction he at first 
professed as to Juve’s culpability. It followed that the way 
he put the questions he had indicated was such as little by 
little to bring about in the prisoner’s breast a return to 
feelings of trust and friendliness. Without making any 
definite confidences to his former Chief, Juve gave the 
latter a glimpse of the hopes he entertained of succeeding 
by way of the inside of the prison in unveiling a comer 
of the mystery. 

The conversation was a long and evidently a satisfactory 
one, for on parting, M. Havard extended his hand cordially 
to his erstwhile fellow worker, while Juve’s face beamed 
with glad relief, and reawakened hope. 


CHAPTER XX 


A woman's self-sacrifice 

The ferry-boat that plies between the bank of the lake 
and the He de Beaute on which the Restaurant Azais 
stands had not actually touched the landing-stage before 
M. Havard, standing up on one of the thwarts of the boat, 
in which indeed he was the only passenger, leapt ashore, 
in a paroxysm of nervous excitement. 

“What am I going to find here?” thought the Chief of 
the Criminal Bureau, “what fresh difficulties am I to be 
faced with, agitated as I am, and really not knowing what 
to do? Then how simply grotesque the visit I paid along 
with the Minister of Justice to that impossible person 
Tom Bob—grotesque to the uttermost degree! I arrive 
with a companion who is to be incognito; before I have 
been there three minutes the man addresses him by his 
name! I come to charge him with crimes committed at 
the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s house; he has never set 
foot inside the place! Then, to crown all, he is rung up by 
Fantomas, offering him contemptuously a petty piece of 
revenge—by way of annoying the Department! Then 
presently, when we reach the prison, it is to find Juve 
wounded and declaring he knows no more about it than 
we do!” 

M. Havard, so formal and precise a man, so staid and 
deliberate as a rule, was for the moment so enraged he 
entirely forgot his dignity and dashed helter skelter, run¬ 
ning like a schoolboy, across the little terrace separating 
the Restaurant Azais from the lakeside. There were only 
a few diners that evening occupying the tables, and al¬ 
ready the majority were hurrying for the ferry-boat, that 
was making ready, after landing the Chief on the island, 
to re-cross to the mainland. Only one man remained 
seated at a table at the farthest end of the restaurant, 

220 


A WOMAN’S SELF-SACRIFICE 


221 


where he was finishing his meal. M. Havard recognized 
this solitary diner at once and ran up to him. 

“Well?” he panted. 

Tom Bob lifted his head and recognized the newcomer. 
Speaking in his quietest tones: “Oh! so there you are, M. 
Havard?” he observed. 

“Yes . . . well?” again asked the Chief. 

“Take a chair, Monsieur Havard; you’ll help me drink 
my coffee? No?” 

M. Havard was boiling over. “The devil take your 
coffee!” he shouted. “Have you seen anything?” 

Still quite unmoved, Tom Bob shrugged. 

“I have seen,” he said, “that the cooking here is quite 
decently good and that it’s an excellent place for eating a 
quiet dinner.” 

“Devil take you and your dinner! Come now, answer 
me seriously . . . Fantomas?” 

“Fantomas has not come yet.” 

M. Havard heaved a sigh of relief, and at last allowed 
himself to sink into the chair Tom Bob had pushed forward 
for him. 

“Not come yet!” he exclaimed, “ah, well, I’m rather 
relieved after all. It was just a joker then?” 

“A joker! Whom d’you mean?” 

“Egad, why, the man who ’phoned you!” 

“I don’t think so.” 

“Still—as nothing has happened.” 

Tom Bob called the waiter. “Bring the cigars,” he 
ordered. Then, turning again to the Head of the Criminal 
Bureau: 

“Well, Monsieur Havard,” he said, “if nothing has 
happened, I fancy that’s because the time hasn’t come 
yet for anything to happen, that’s all.” 

M. Havard growled out: “You think the ...” 

“I think . . . ’pon my word! Monsieur Havard, I think 
the wisest thing to do is to wait patiently. Anyway, Fan¬ 
tomas strikes me as being quite a man of the world. If 
he really means to destroy the charming surroundings 
where he has brought me for this little dinner, I think he 
has had the politeness to wait till I have finished. It was 
the least he could do.” 

But M. Havard failed to appreciate the American de- 


222 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


tective’s irony. Interrupting him in the middle of his 
sentence, he sprang from his chair, and slapping his 
forehead: 

“And my men ?’ 7 he cried, “I must make sure they are 
there.” 

“What men?” 

“The officers.” 

“You’ve sent police-officers here?” 

“Ten inspectors from the Bureau, yes!” 

An amused smile flitted over the detective’s lips as he 
looked at M. Havard whimsically. 

“By the Lord!” he cried, “if I was Fantomas, I should 
be flattered; at a telephone ring from him, you set a little 
army in motion, Monsieur Havard! It’s a pretty compli¬ 
ment, d’you know, on your part.” 

But M. Havard would hear no more. 

“It’s a compliment, or it’s not a compliment,” he struck 
in in a dry tone that, he hoped, would cut short the Amer¬ 
ican’s irony. Anyhow, this is the way it is; you, if by 
any chance you succeeded in catching one glimpse of Fan¬ 
tomas, they’d all be shouting wonder fid l miraculousI If / 
were to arrest him, why, they’d just say it was all in 
the day’s work; now, as I don’t arrest him, they throw 
stones at me! ... Meet you again, directly, I’m off to see 
if my men are posted.” 

M. Havard took three steps to go, then thinking better 
of it and coming up to Tom Bob again: 

“Look here,” he excused himself, “I was a bit blunt 
with you; but you mustn’t be angry, for some while back 
I’ve had good cause to be irritable, you’ll admit that?” 

“I do,” Tom Bob agreed. 

“Then forgive me! Now tell me—you’ve done some 
smart things since your arrival in this country, I can’t 
deny you’re clever—tell me, have you any idea what 
Fantomas may try to do this evening?” 

Tom Bob was evidently too good-hearted and too nice 
a fellow not to commiserate the bad temper M. Havard 
suffered from, for it was in a very cordial tone this time 
that he answered the Chief of the Criminal Bureau: 

“I can form no supposition on that point—nay, I will 
go further, and admit there’s Something that worrieis 

TV.O ” 


A WOMAN’S SELF-SACRIFICE 


223 


“What is it?” 

“This; if Fantomas has invited us here, it is because 
he is quite confident we are not likely either to guess or 
parry the blow he is preparing. Moreover, I’ve been 
engaged since I got here, in making a cursory investigation, 
and having learnt nothing . . 

But M. Havard, to the last degree perplexed, had become 
deeply buried in his own thoughts. 

“For my own part,” he admitted, “do you know what 
it is worries me?” 

“No! What does?” 

“I keep asking myself whether Fantomas has not enticed 
us here, has not enticed you here in particular, you, Tom 
Bob, on purpose to have a free hand at some other spot in 
the city which it was his pleasure perhaps to visit.” 

Tom Bob too, debated the supposition M. Havard had 
just formulated. 

“No, that would not be playing fair,” he said at last; 
“and Fantomas has never been dishonourable. No, I can’t 
believe he would do that.” 

M. Havard shrugged his shoulders by way of answer; 
he distrusted the American’s psychological acumen. 

After a short silence, M. Havard resumed: 

“Well, as you please, Monsieur Bob, but my opinion is 
that for to-night, either we are the victims of some practical 
joker, or in any case the affair is off. Fantomas must 
have seen that my officers were here in force. For my 
part, I am going to take a turn to look after my men; I 
know where they are, hidden about the island. Then I 
shall take the ferry again and so back to the Prefecture. 
Will you join me?” 

Tom Bob shook his head. 

“No,” he declared, “I shall spend the night here. I 
make it a point to keep my tryst with Fantomas. How¬ 
ever, M. Havard, I will go with you in the boat as far as 
the other bank; that will give me the pleasure of another 
row on this pretty lake, a perfect jewel at this time of an 
evening, the finest thing of its kind, surely, in Paris.” 

Still in a hurry, M. Havard did not stop to listen to the 
American’s praises of the Bois de Boulogne. He crossed 
the little wooden bridge joining the two parts of the island, 
made sure that the officers he had sent there in the after- 


224 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


noon were at their posts, ordered them to keep a most 
careful watch all night on the lake, and its approaches, then 
made his way back to Tom Bob. 

“You are coming?” 

“I am quite ready.” 

The detective got up, paid the bill for his dinner, and 
took another cigar, while M. Havard, faithful to his usual 
habits, refused the Havana Tom Bob offered him and drew 
a cigarette from his case. The two police-officials left the 
restaurant and made for the landing, where the ferry-boat 
was again putting in. 

“Get in,” M. Havard urged the American. 

“After you!” protested the Head of the Criminal Bureau. 
“Halloa, have you a light about you? Will you pass me 
a match, I haven’t got one.” 

Tom Bob looked at his cigar. “I’m not well alight 
myself,” he said, and pulling a box of vestas from his 
pocket, he lit one, handed it to M. Havard, then took it 
back and applied it to his own cigar; then, as the match 
was beginning to burn his fingers, he tossed it into the 
lake. 

But then, suddenly, with terrifying intensity, with an 
incredible rapidity, a fantastic, unheard-of, appalling thing 
happened. The very instant the burning match touched the 
water, the lake caught fire and blazed up fiercely, giving 
off dense clouds of smoke and sending up huge flickering 
flames of red and blue that instantly covered the whole 
surface with a sheet of fire. 

Fortunately Tom Bob had managed to grip M. Havard 
by the arm and drag him back from the boat he was just 
getting into, and both started running breathlessly for the 
middle of the island, accompanied as they went by the 
various employes of the Azdis, the manager and a few 
customers who were still on the premises, all flying head¬ 
long before the flames. The sight was fairylike, unforget- 
able, but tragic to the last degree. The whole lake indeed 
was a veritable sea of fire, which the eye could not pierce. 
From this gigantic brazier a sooty smoke went up in swirl¬ 
ing eddies, instantly veiling the sky with thick, heavy 
clouds. The heat was terrific, so intense that the sweat 
rolled in torrents down the faces of the unfortunates im¬ 
prisoned on the island. The air indeed was almost unbreath- 


A WOMAN’S SELF-SACRIFICE 


225 

able. All round the party branches kept breaking off the 
trees and the smaller boughts beginning to flare up, while the 
shrubs dipping in the water were in turn taking fire. 

“We are done for!” groaned M. Havard. But Tom Bob 
preserved his presence of mind. 

“To the middle of the island!” he shouted; “come this 
way,”—and he led all his companions to the centre of the 
little island. Once there, he proceeded to calm their appre¬ 
hensions. 

“Keep cool!” he said, “keep cool! If the lake is on fire, 
there can be only one explanation, that they’ve emptied over 
the surface barrels of naphtha or petroleum. Egad! Fan¬ 
tomas can’t be far; it’s a miracle we have escaped, Mon¬ 
sieur Havard; I imagine he was only waiting for both of 
us to be in the boat between the bank and the island to put 
a light to his naphtha and roast us to death.” 

“Yes, indeed,” M. Havard agreed, “a minute more and 
we were dead men.” 

Tom Bob shook his head gravely. “If only there are no 
fatalities,” he said. “Look, it strikes me the flames are 
not so fierce now? Evidently the layer of naphtha cannot 
have been very thick. Yes, the flames are dropping, but 
. . . but . . .”■—as he spoke, fearful screams broke out 
coming from a little further away. M. Havard and the 
detective looked at each other in consternation. The cries 
grew louder and louder, and with one impulse the two men 
dashed to the rescue. They had distinctly heard the words: 

“Help! help! . . . Fantomas! Fantomas! Fantomas is 
here!” 

While M. Havard and the unlucky Tom Bob were in 
such imminent peril from the monstrous audacity of the 
ever elusive brigand, while the lake was taking fire with 
alarming rapidity, a tragedy had been enacting on its banks. 

It was the day after the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s 
ball, and that very evening Lady Beltham, in fulfilment of 
her promise to Fandor, was to go and see Elisabeth Dollon 
to assure her of the journalist’s innocence. Fandor never 
doubted that the great lady would keep her engagement 
and find some way of meeting the girl. After the furious 
dagger thrust, against which his coat of mail had so fortu¬ 
nately protected him, after his flight from the grand duch¬ 
ess’s, a flight that lady had in fact facilitated, the journalist 


226 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


could no longer doubt that Fantomas had been really present 
at that festivity. And from that moment the death of the 
unfortunate police-officer was no riddle to him—Joffre had 
fallen by the hand of Fantomas. This fresh murder in no 
way surprised him. 

Accordingly Jerome Fandor, anxious above all things to 
meet Elisabeth Dollon and secure a renewal of the girl’s 
favour, had all the afternoon been watching for Lady Bel- 
tham’s arrival at the lake in the Bois. But it was only at 
nine in the evening that she arrived, and Fandor had of 
course taken care not to reveal his presence just then. 
When Lady Beltham should be returning and re-crossing 
the lake, then he would go to her and thank her and ask 
her if he might now go to Elisabeth to find her convinced of 
his innocence; for the moment it was very necessary to keep 
concealed. 

But just as the boat reached the landing place of the 
Restaurant Azai's, Fandor, who was still prowling on the 
road beside the lake, caught sight of M. Havard’s figure, 
and Tom Bob with him, both evidently intending to take 
the ferry on their way back to Paris. 

Then in an instant came a flash, a blaze, an impassable 
wall of fire separating the journalist from the island and 
the restaurant. Like a madman, the unhappy man ran 
along the bank, wringing his hands in despair. But what 
could he do? what could he do? In an agony he pictured 
the terrible position, perhaps the fatal position ... in 
which the wretches now on the island might find themselves. 

“Elisabeth!” he cried, “Elisabeth, oh! we are under a 
curse!” 

Fandor in fact was asking himself if the fire was not 
going to reach the island, if indeed the island itself, drenched 
with petroleum, was not blazing too; if Elisabeth were not 
doomed to die by that awful death, the death that is worse 
than a thousand deaths, death by fire! 

Fandor could divine the whole villainous plot. No, it 
was no mere coincidence that the lake should take fire at 
the very moment Elisabeth learned that he was innocent. 
Not a doubt of it this was another of the horrid acts of 
cruelty Fantomas loved. Fantomas had willed Elisabeth 
should die at that precise moment. Yes, for he knew all, 
he had learned the rendez-vow arranged with the grand 


A WOMAN’S SELF-SACRIFICE 


227 

duchess, for had he not been present at the whole conversa¬ 
tion between Fandor and the great lady, when Fandor mere¬ 
ly supposed he was looking at one of the many reflections 
in the mirrors ornamenting the walls of the winter garden. 

The lake had been burning for nearly three minutes. 
Suddenly Fandor made up his mind; throwing off his coat, 
the brave young man ran to the bank of the lake, whose 
waters were still blazing; his face was pale, but a look of 
determination flashed in his eyes as he plunged into the 
torrent of fire! 

“I will swim under water,” the daring fellow told himself. 
“No, I cannot let Elisabeth perish so; if she is to die, 
I will die near her, with her!” 

It was a heroic but a mad venture. The channel sepa¬ 
rating the mainland from the island was broad, and half 
way across, he had no breath left and must at any cost 
come to the surface, magnificent swimmer though he was. 
The water was still blazing. Barely had he time to 
snatch a mouthful of mephitic, scarce breathable air, when 
he must dive under again on pain of being burnt alive. 

“Ten strokes more! . . . five more . . . three more!”— 
his knees grazed the bottom, he had reached the shore! 

Panting, breathless, Fandor climbed on the bank, griev¬ 
ously hurt, bleeding, half dead; but he was near his goal. 
He cried, “Elisabeth!”—and in the distance, his eyes still 
dazzled with the glare of the fire, the journalist seemed to 
see a woman’s form. He staggered towards her, a haggard, 
terrifying figure. But no sooner was he near the girl, for 
it was really she, flying with Lady Beltham before the 
advancing flames—she had taken refuge there—than he 
started back, struck with consternation. 

Lady Beltham had not yet had time to speak to Elisabeth 
Dollon, and the girl, seeing this dreadful apparition rise 
before her, Fandor, pale and bleeding, had screamed out 
in frantic terror: 

“Fantomas! Fantomas! it is Fantomas!” 

“Where is he gone!” Lady Beltham eagerly questioned 
M. Havard and Tom Bob, who had run up on hearing the 
cries. She had not recognized Fandor, but on the other 
hand she knew it was not Fantomas who had shown himself. 
Instinctively she pointed in the direction in which the 
journalist had taken to flight. 


228 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


Thereupon followed a veritable man-hunt, duly organ¬ 
ized. Blowing a shrill whistle, M. Havard called up his 
men, scattered more or less everywhere about the island. 

“Fantomas is there” he yelled, “he has just swum over. 

. . . Dead or alive he must be taken, dead or alive!” 

Not a clump of trees but was searched. The waters of 
the lake, no longer aflame, looked dark and gloomy as 
before, clouds of soot made the air oppressive to breathe, 
the only light to help the officers in their frantic search came 
from some trees that were still burning on the bank of the 
lake. From all sides sounded cries, shouts, exclamations. 
For Fandor was now in full flight before the pursuing 
myrmidons of the law. 

What did it all mean? He was far from having any 
clear conception of this. Once more Fantomas had laid 
his plans marvellously well; once more Fortune had favoured 
him. He it was, Fandor could surely guess, who had con¬ 
trived that Tom Bob and M. Havard were on the island 
at the very moment the lake was to burst into flame. Fan¬ 
tomas had of course felt no doubt that Fandor, prowling 
about the neighbourhood waiting to know the result of 
Lady Beltham’s visit, would be one of the first to make a 
dash for the island. In this way he would tumble into a 
regular trap. 

Fandor was in full flight, seeing everywhere men hunt¬ 
ing for him, revolver in hand, for the scattered conflagra¬ 
tions, dying down one by one, still afforded some light. 

“By the Lord!” he thought to himself, “I have no choice. 
I must take to the water, stay as long as possible out in 
the middle of the lake; it’ll be the devil’s own luck if I 
don’t manage to put them off the scent.” But at that 
moment a ball whistled past his ear. He had imprudently 
come too close, an officer had caught sight of him and fired. 

“Damnation!” muttered the young man, springing back 
sharply, “it seems a price is set on my head.” 

“There! there, I tell you! God Almighty, give me a 
revolver!” The pursuit was still hot, when suddenly a 
splash was heard in the water. The police officers gathered 
in a crowd; “He’ll get away! and never a boat!” 

But one of the men was equal to the occasion; “ ‘Dead 
or alive!’ M. Havard told us we were to capture Fantomas 
dead or alive! By God! it was childish to spare his life 


A WOMAN’S SELF-SACRIFICE 


229 

when we had him at our mercy. A volley!” cried the man, 
“Fire, all together!” 

His advice was followed, the officers fired off their re¬ 
volvers at a venture in the direction of the splash. And next 
instant, drowning the sound of the shots, a sharp cry rang 
through the night: 

“Help! . . . oh! . . . help!” 

“Hit! Fantomas is hit!” 

But Tom Bob was already making for the restaurant 
at a run. A boat lay high and dry on the bank; swiftly 
he dragged it to the water’s edge, sprang in, and in a few 
strokes of the oars was at the spot the cries had come from. 

“Fantomas” he yelled—he could be clearly heard from 
the shore—“Fantomas! surrender!” 

Other boats came up; each second seemed an eternity. 
But now M. Havard, leaning over the side of his boat, 
gripped a dark shape struggling in the water; “I’ve got 
him!” Then in triumph, he shouted an order to the officer 
who was at the oars: 

“Row, my man, bring us to the shore! . . . there, be¬ 
side that tree, it is still burning, so we shall see plain, any¬ 
how! ... he must be seriously wounded, he has stopped 
struggling.” 

But as the boat entered the zone illuminated by the 
blazing tree, M. Havard, still holding the mysterious human 
body he had gripped in the darkness, could not check an 
exclamation of dismay. 

“Oh! curses on it! curses on it! It is not Fantomas! 
It is not the man! it is a woman!” 

Others helped, and the inert form was soon carried ashore. 

Then suddenly, Lady Beltham, who had looked on in 
frenzied distress at all this scene of horror, came forward, 
a tragic figure, her eyes wide with terror. 

“Oh! it is horrible,” she groaned, falling on her knees 
beside the half-drowned woman’s body, “it is horrible, she 
tried to save him, to put them off the scent! They have 
killed an innocent woman! they have killed Elisabeth 
Dollon!” 


CHAPTER XXI 


JOY CAN KILL 

“You are good and kind, madam.” 

“No, no! don’t say that.” 

“But you are! you are exquisitely good, exquisitely kind.” 

A spasm of pain crossed the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s 
face, and it was in almost a harsh tone that she protested 
again: 

“You are mistaken. Then, to begin with, the doctor 
forbids you to talk; you must obey his orders so as to get 
well, and you know very well you have to get well quickly.” 

Moving soundlessly over the thick carpets of the sick¬ 
room, the grand duchess stepped up to the bed on which 
lay the young girl she addressed. With a light, skilful 
touch she shook up the pillows, re-arranged the bedclothes 
and settled the patient in the most comfortable position. 

“Try to get to sleep, won’t you?” 

“I am not sleepy; I am burning with fever and I feel 
thirsty—oh! so thirsty.” 

The grand duchess carefully measured out a few drops of 
champagne into a glass, added a little water, and held 
out the cool, refreshing beverage: 

“Drink, my poor darling. The doctor did not forbid 
this.” 

A wan smile hovered on the patient’s lips, as she eagerly 
quenched her raging thirst. 

“The doctor!” she murmured, “why does the doctor worry 
me with his prescriptions? He knows I shall not get well.” 

But in a severe voice now, a tinge of bitterness even in 
its tones, the grand duchess replied: 

“I do not wish you, Elisabeth, to talk like that. You 
have no right not to get well. . . . Think of him!” 

By what series of strange events came Elisabeth Dollon, 
for the injured woman was indeed Elisabeth Dollon, to 
230 


JOY CAN KILL 


231 

be in this house, the house of the Grand Duchess Alexandra, 
to have that enigmatic personage for sick-nurse? 

The pursuit of Fandor among the underwood of the lie 
de Beaute, while the blazing lake was burning itself out, had 
ended in a startling tragedy, the discovery of Elisabeth 
wounded, shot by the police-officers, who had fired on her 
in the belief they were shooting at Fantomas. How had the 
mistake come about? Alas! it found its explanation in a 
terrible scene that had just passed between the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra and the unhappy girl the young jour¬ 
nalist loved. When the first moments of stupefaction were 
over, and the officers of justice were hotly pursuing the 
fugitive, Elisabeth Dollon had confessed to the grand 
duchess in the stammering accents of terror, that it was 
really and truly the journalist Fandor she had seen and 
denounced under the name of Fantomas. 

Then the grand duchess had hesitated no more. She had 
come there to undeceive Elisabeth Dollon, to convince her 
of Fandor’s innocence, and now she carried out her inten¬ 
tion with a vigour and emphasis born of her sympathy 
with the pair, and even as she spoke, she could see the girl 
turn pale and almost faint in her excitement. It was true 
then, Fandor was innocent? Fandor was worthy of her 
love! Fandor was the victim of a cruel Fate!—and it 
was she who had set the policemen on his track, the men 
who at that moment were ransacking the island to seize 
him, dead or alive! 

In an instant the brave girl had resolved on a sublime 
act of self-sacrifice. Realizing that Fandor was done for 
if the pursuit continued, she made up her mind to interrupt 
this dreadful man-hunt. But how? By a terrible, a 
tragic ruse. In the darkness she ran to the water-side, threw 
herself into the lake, where she swam about vigorously, 
splashing with might and main so as to attract attention. 

The hoped for result followed. The men heard the noise, 
they thought it was their quarry escaping, confusion grew 
worse confounded. 

All this she had expected; but, alas! one grim conse¬ 
quence of her act she had not foreseen. In the fierce 
eagerness of their pursuit, the officers did not rest content 
merely to dash off on the fugitive’s traces; fully believing it 
was Fantomas trying to escape, they fired off their revolvers, 


232 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

hardly stopping to take aim. A ball struck Elisabeth, she 
gave one despairing shriek, and it was a wounded, half- 
drowned woman M. Havard brought ashore. 

All crowded round the unfortunate girl, who still lay 
unconscious, and presently she was carried to the restaurant, 
where the Grand Duchess Alexandra was the first to kneel 
beside her, exhausting every means to recall her to life. 
She alone had seen all, and had guessed the true explana¬ 
tion of the terrible adventure. Her own love story a tragedy, 
herself a heroine in her day, the grand duchess could not 
fail to understand the motives that had guided Elisabeth, 
while the young girl’s noble self-sacrifice, her marvellous 
courage, had won the great lady’s highest respect and ad¬ 
miration. 

Waiting till the police had completed their inquiries, the 
grand duchess herself organized the transport of the in¬ 
jured woman. She was determined to take her home with 
her and had her carried to her house in the Parc des Princes; 
there she summoned to her bedside the highest medical 
talent to be found in Paris. Doubtless she hoped by thus 
devoting herself to Elisabeth Dollon, by soothing away so 
far as was possible the girl’s dreadful anxieties, to repair, 
as much as in her lay, the cruelties of her lover, of Fantomas, 
the man she loved in spite of everything. 

Two days had passed, and during that time Elisabeth 
Dollon’s condition, far from improving, had actually grown 
worse. The surgeons, called in one after the other, had 
departed, shaking their heads ominously; the ball had 
struck Elisabeth full in the chest and grazed the lungs. 
“She may be saved; it is possible she may recover!” such 
had been Professor Ardel’s pronouncement. He had pre¬ 
scribed absolute quiet, rest, a light diet, but alas! had not 
concealed the serious apprehensions he felt for the patient’s 
life. 

It was in a feeble, breathless, almost inaudible voice, 
that Elisabeth appealed to the Grand Duchess Alexandra. 

“You have had no news of him yet?” she asked. 

The grand duchess, seeing the girl was awake, had 
drawn up a chair to the bedside and was holding between 
her slim, aristocratic fingers, Elisabeth’s little hands. 

“No, I have no tidings of him yet. But, as I told you, 
he has escaped. No doubt he finds it difficult to come 


JOY CAN KILL 


233 

here, my house is perhaps watched. How can we tell? 
But do not agitate yourself, Elisabeth; I repeat, Fandor is 
bound to find out that you are here, and knowing you are 
here, he also knows that I must have convinced you of his 
innocence. I am persuaded he will not be long before he 
comes to see you. . . 

But suddenly the grand duchess broke off. Framed in 
the doorway the figure of a man had appeared; his face 
was worn with suffering, and he had pushed his way in 
frantic haste to the bedchamber, throwing aside the foot¬ 
man who was for showing him into an adjoining sitting 
room. It was Jerome Fandor! The unhappy young man 
strode across the room and fell to his knees beside Elisa¬ 
beth’s bed. With a passionate, yet restrained ardour he 
took the girl’s hand and covered it with burning kisses. 

“Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” he murmured, “oh! what misery, 
and yet what bliss! to find you here, wounded, wounded for 
me! For I understand your noble self-sacrifice. What 
happiness to find you again, to have the right to love you!” 

At sight of him, Elisabeth had instinctively sprung up 
in bed as if to rise and meet him; then, exhausted by the 
effort, pale as a dead woman, she had sunk back on the 
pillows. The hand Fandor held lay cold and lifeless in his, 
and it was in a weak whisper the girl asked: 

“You forgive me, dear, for my suspicions, my distrust 
of you?” 

The tears stood in Fandor’s eyes as he asked: 

“But you do not distrust me any more?” 

Elisabeth answered with a wan smile, and the young 
man sprang up impulsively and with outstretched hands, 
approached the grand duchess. 

“Madam!” he cried, “never, madam, can I forget that it 
is thanks to you. . . .” 

No less moved herself, the grand duchess returned Fan- 
dor’s hand clasp. 

“Sir,” she began, “when, in the name of love, you came 
to beseech me, me, Lady Beltham. . . .” 

But there she stopped; with a cry, a groan, Elisabeth 
Dollon had repeated the name, “Lady Beltham?” 

Without intending it, the grand duchess had revealed 
to Elisabeth her real title, her tragic identity. Be sure, 
Elisabeth had heard of Fantomas’ ill-omened mistress! 


234 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


Many times had she read the tragic name of Lady Beltham 
in the public prints coupled with that of the notorious 
brigand. “Lady Beltham!” So it was Lady Beltham, 
this Grand Duchess Alexandra, who was nursing her with 
such devoted kindness! 

But already, Jerome Fandor was on his knees again be¬ 
side Elisabeth’s bed. 

“For pity’s sake,” he besought her, “be brave, my darling! 
be calm! be courageous!” 

Alas! even as he spoke, the young man felt the sick 
woman’s hand grow heavier, more deathlike in his. Like 
a flower that has borne the buffets of the storm and fades 
at the outburst of too fierce a sun, the unhappy child, 
after the grievous hours, the tragic, the dreadful times she 
had lived through, could not endure the too overpowering 
delight she felt at seeing Fandor again, and knowing him 
innocent, the too overwhelming shock of discovering that 
Lady Beltham stood before her! 

“Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” Jerome Fandor cried in tones 
of sudden terror. Oh! how pale she was now, lying there 
with closed eyes, her head thrown back on the pillows, 
her golden hair dishevelled! 

Lady Beltham, like Fandor, was seized with a sudden 
misgiving. The minutes seemed hours in the slow agony of 
suspense. At last the girl opened her eyes; she threw 
a grateful look at the grand duchess, this mysterious Lady 
Beltham, who had taken pity on her; then, with a super¬ 
human effort, she whispered faintly: “Jerome Fandor!” 

But as she lifted her hand to meet the journalist’s clasp, 
a faint sigh breathed from her lips, a sigh so light, so calm, 
it was a full minute yet ere Jerome Fandor, ere Lady 
Beltham, realized the dreadful truth, the dire calamity, 
the fell catastrophe—Elisabeth Dollon was dead! 

In the darkened chamber Jerome Fandor’s long-drawn 
sobs proclaimed the unfortunate young man’s infinite dis¬ 
tress! Vaguely and indistinctly, as in a dream, the young 
man, still on his knees by the dead girl’s bed, draining to 
the dregs his grief and despair, had heard a footman come 
in a few minutes before, seeking the Grand Duchess Alex¬ 
andra. Absorbed in his grief, dazed with suffering, Fandor 
had not so much as raised his head. But the death cham- 


JOY CAN KILL 


235 

ber communicated by double doors, at present wide open, 
with an adjoining sitting room, and from this room voices 
could be heard. 

The grand duchess, mastering her very sincere grief, 
had consented to see a visitor, who was now with her. 
Jerome Fandor, in the automatic way people’s attention 
is fixed by external trifles at times of the most poignant emo¬ 
tions, in the midst of the deepest sorrows, found himself 
listening to the conversation. 

“Madam,” a voice was saying, a voice Fandor recognized 
with a startled exclamation to be that of M. Havard, 
“madam, the step I am taking to-day, believe me, is 
official; but in any case I think you will be ready to do as 
I desire.” 

“Speak, sir.” 

“You have recently, madam, taken the initiative in or¬ 
ganizing a public subscription with the object of collecting 
the sum demanded by Fantomas as the condition of his 
disappearance, and refused him by the Chamber. That 
is so, is it not? you admit the fact?” 

Haughtily the grand duchess assented. 

“Yes, sir, that is so. I will even add that the money is 
beginning to come in.” 

“Madam,” resumed M. Havard, “I do not know what 
motive prompted you. . . .” 

The grand duchess did not let the Head of the Criminal 
Bureau finish his sentence. 

“The motives that prompted me are quite simple,” she 
said; “the Chamber has refused to accept Fantomas’ 
ultimatum. That brigand, recoiling at nothing, now that 
Parliament has refused his demands, is adding crime to 
crime, piling atrocity on atrocity. What the Government 
declines to approve, it struck me as incumbent on private 
initiative to carry out. Fantomas the murderer promises he 
will kill no more if he is paid a million francs. What more 
natural, Monsieur Havard, than to open a general sub¬ 
scription to provide this million? to put Fantomas in a 
position to fulfil his undertaking? to induce him to halt in 
his sanguinary and deadly career?” 

M. Havard did not answer at once; after some moments 
thought, however, he took up the word: 

“Natural it may have been, madam, I have no wish to 


236 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

gauge the morality of the motives that may have led you to 
start this subscription; but I am bound to note the con¬ 
sequences of your action.” 

“And they, Monsieur Havard, are?” 

“Deplorable, madam, deplorable!” 

“But, sir! ... It is a reign of terror. The vilest abomi¬ 
nations are of daily occurrence; crime follows crime, each 
more terrifying than the last, more monstrous, assuming 
even the character of crimes against the state. I believe 
my subscription will quickly prove a success, that I shall 
soon raise the sum of money required, that soon Fantomas 
will disappear. That is no deplorable result, is it?” 

M. Havard had one of the little coughing fits he so fre¬ 
quently suffered from and which commonly served to dis¬ 
guise his embarrassments. 

“What is deplorable,” he said at last, in a peevish tone, 
“is the fact that this subscription of yours, madam, makes 
my duties a farce, renders the French police ridiculous. 
How can we consent to Fantomas being paid to do us the 
favour to leave off murdering? He is an assassin! he 
should be arrested, that’s all there is to it.” 

In a tone almost of mockery, certainly of irony, the 
grand duchess protested: 

“But, Monsieur Havard, you don’t arrest him!” 

“No,” confessed the Head of the Bureau, “no, not yet! 
But we shall arrest him.” 

A silence followed, which Lady Beltham at last broke, 
to say: 

“So that, according to you. . . .” 

“According to me,” declared M. Havard—“and again I 
tell you this officially—it would be well, Madame la Grande 
Duchesse, to arrest your subscription. It is, I repeat, 
really an insult to my office.” 

M. Havard paused, then proceeded: 

“However, you are free to act as you deem fit. . . . It 
is evident that after all. ... In a word, madam, my visit 
had another object. I may disapprove of your subscription, 
I have no right to misappropriate its funds. The fact is I 
have received . . . from an anonymous contributor a sum 
of ten thousand francs with the request to hand it to you; 
here is the money.” 

All the time the grand duchess and M. Havard were thus 


JOY CAN KILL 


237 

conversing, Jerome could not help shuddering. He 
was barely a few yards from the man who was tracking 
him down with such determination! Lady Beltham was 
talking to M. Havard in an adjoining room, but hidden by 
the curtains, while he, Jerome Fandor, who was supposed to 
be Fantomas’ accomplice, with the whole Criminal Bureau 
in pursuit of him, was only a few yards away! Was Lady 
Beltham going to betray him? She had adored Fantomas 
madly, she undoubtedly adored him still; did she not intend, 
to help in her lover’s work, to deliver up him, Fandor, to 
the Bureau? After all, she knew quite well that Jerome 
Fandor was the only man—Juve being in gaol—capable of 
checkmating the brigand. How she must be tempted to 
denounce him to M. Havard! But no, no! he must, he ought 
to trust to her good faith; Lady Beltham was an enemy, 
but she was an honourable enemy! 

Then Fandor weighed the value to be attached to what 
M. Havard had said. He could well understand the annoy¬ 
ance the Head of the Criminal Department might reason¬ 
ably feel about the subscription opened by Lady Beltham. 
But then, what was the meaning of this gift from an 
anonymous well-wisher transmitted through M. Havard’s 
hands? Must one not, in fact, gather that the Head of 
the Criminal Bureau, anxious above all measure to be rid 
of Fantomas, was equally desirous, while concealing his 
modus operandU, to contribute to the fund and so hasten 
the time when the grand duchess would have the million 
francs in hand and be in a position to secure the brigand’s 
disappearance? 

But Jerome Fandor’s reflections were suddenly inter¬ 
rupted; he had heard Lady Beltham speaking again: 

“M. Havard, you may, as a police-officer, regret the 
opening of my subscription, which I can well understand 
hurts your professional interests; but as a woman, I 
confess I am afraid of Fantomas, I shudder at the thought 
of the atrocious crimes this brigand is still committing, 
and may go on committing. That is why I shall continue 
to accept all the sums of money given me with this object.” 

M. Havard in turn replied: 

“You are free to act, madam! Still, I hope we shall 
have laid hands, not on Fantomas, who, the public is too 
apt to forget, is in prison, but on Jerome Fandor, his 


238 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

redoubtable accomplice, before you have had time to deal 
with the funds you are collecting for him . . . and, con¬ 
sequently. . . 

Lady Beltham did not reply at once, causing Fandor a 
moment’s suspense that seemed an eternity. He threw 
a rapid glance round the room. He was too ill acquainted 
with the grand duchess’s mansion to be able to make good 
his escape if she told the police-officer he was there. If she 
was for betraying him, she could deliver him up without 
his having the power to stir a finger to save himself. 

But just as the journalist was feeling himself to be caught 
in a trap without an issue, he heard Lady Beltham’s voice; 
she was saying: 

“I wish you every success, Monsieur Havard, in effecting 
your arrest of Jerome Fandor—seeing you believe that 
Jerome Fandor is Fantomas’ accomplice.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


A VOLUNTEER WAITER 

Tom Bob had been waiting some while in a small room 
reserved for the use of callers on the ground floor of the 
house. The detective seemed extremely impatient, again 
and again he looked at his watch. 

“Half after nine,” he muttered, “I cannot afford to waste 
time, yet I must make sure Ascott will not fail. . . The 
man was frowning in evident anxiety, as he asked himself 
what sort of a reception the wealthy Englishman would 
accord him. Since the strange affair of the Pre Catalan, 
which had culminated so extraordinarily in the capsizing 
of the automobiles into the lake, Tom Bob had not seen 
Ascott again, save on very rare occasions. For this there 
were several reasons. In the first place the detective had 
been very much taken up—at any rate he said so—with 
the events that had occurred since his arrival in Paris, since 
he had officially declared his intention to devote himself to 
the pursuit and discovery of Fantomas. Moreover, the 
intrigue between Tom Bob and the Princess Sonia Danidoff 
was not, could not be, unknown to the members of the in¬ 
timate little group of fellow-travellers that had come to¬ 
gether on board the Lorraine on her passage across the 
Atlantic. Better than anyone, indeed, Ascott, who had 
been deeply smitten by the Princess, must be aware that 
in Tom Bob he had a fortunate rival, who had quickly won 
his lady’s favours. In truth, it required all the American’s 
calm effrontery thus, without any preliminary testing of 
his footing, to come calling on the young Englishman, 
who might very well be proposing to give him a highly un¬ 
pleasant reception. 

“True it is,” Tom Bob told himself, “that since he aban¬ 
doned his unsuccessful wooing of the Princess Sonia, Ascott 
has had other amorous adventures that should surely at 
this time of day prevent his being jealous of me.” The 

239 


240 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


affair at the Silver Goblet had, in fact, become a matter of 
general gossip, albeit not specially spoken about among 
the detective’s own circle of friends, and the American 
appeared to be perfectly well posted as to what was hap¬ 
pening, as well as what was likely to come of it eventually. 

At last Ascott’s man-servant, John, appeared, and invited 
the detective to follow him upstairs to his master’s study, 
where he found the Englishman seated at his desk, writing. 

“Up already!” exclaimed the visitor cheerfully “and ready 
for anything! Upon my word, my dear fellow, Paris has 
quite changed your habits. How are you this morning?” 

Ascott turned half round in his chair, extending a careless 
hand to his visitor: 

“Not so bad, and you, Tom Bob? To what do I owe 
the pleasure of your visit? Take a seat, pray!” 

“Good!” thought the detective, “he is not over and above 
angry with me!” At the same time, remembering that time 
was flying with alarming swiftness, he announced: 

“I have merely come to shake you by the hand, as I was 
passing your way.” 

But Ascott, who appeared to guess the object of his 
visit, began to hunt through his pocket-book, from which 
he presently extracted a bank note. Holding this out to 
the detective: 

“Here is my subscription,” he said: “will you be so 
obliging as to hand this thousand francs to the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra when you have an opportunity of 
seeing her.” 

Tom Bob expressed his willingness with an almost im¬ 
perceptible smile. 

“Just fancy, my dear sir,” he remarked, “how timorous 
Parisian society is; to think that it is now a perfect mania, 
a fashionable craze, quite the correct thing in fact, to 
subscribe to this fund. They want to see Fantomas waxing 
fat! ... ’ponmyword! it is excruciatingly funny. Hence¬ 
forth, I take it the light-fingered gentry will have an easy 
time of it when they want to make their fortunes. Instead 
of fagging themselves to commit crimes, they will only 
have to make it known through the newspapers that they 
are short of cash for the moment, and the money will 
come tumbling in straight away! Why, sir,” continued the 
detective, “it will be the ruin of the police; I ask you, 


A VOLUNTEER WAITER 


241 

what are we to do, my colleagues and I, when there are no 
more any culprits to hunt down, any criminals to arrest?” 

Tom Bob had uttered his little speech in a tone of 
laughing irony well calculated to divert his host, but the 
latter declined to be amused. 

“What do you think about it?” the detective insisted, 
“what impression does all this Fantomas business make on 
you?” 

Ascott, rousing himself from a prolonged reverie, shrugged 
his shoulders. 

“I don’t care a fig about it,” he declared, “I am bored to 
death. . . 

The other feigned no little surprise. 

“Well, that is just what struck me, my dear sir; you 
look tired, altered, you never go into society nowadays; 
have you had worries perhaps?” 

Ascott nodded and was about to speak when the Ameri¬ 
can broke in, making his question more definite: 

“I’ve heard vaguely of some untoward adventure you 
were the hero of a while ago. . . .” 

“Rather say the victim,” put in Ascott. 

The detective caught him up: 

“The victim! come, that’s a big word; what did happen 
to you?” 

The young Englishman seemed unwilling to explain his 
words. 

“Oh! nothing,” he said, “or nothing much!” 

Then, after a pause, and as if he had just come to a 
supreme decision, he got up, strode two or three times up 
and down the room, then standing before the detective 
with folded arms, he declared: 

“Tom Bob, I should by rights be more angry with you 
than in fact I am, for you have played me a trick, a 
damnable trick, involuntarily, I am sure of that, but the 
fact remains, you have played me one of those tricks men 
find it hard to forgive, you have supplanted me in the affec¬ 
tions of a woman I loved.” 

The detective gave a gesture of protestation. 

“Pooh! my good sir,” he said, “women and their ways! 
these things are never to be taken seriously.” 

“That depends; no doubt, you will tell me I had for ages 
been courting the princess without winning the smallest 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


242 

favour from her, while it was enough for you to arrive on 
the scene to become instantly the darling of her heart . . . 
well, be it so! I do not press the point, and you may 
have noticed this, that I never tried to compete with you. 
No, luck or ill luck decreed that at that very moment my 
affections took the field elsewhere. . . .” 

Tom Bob heaved a sigh of relief. 

Tam delighted to hear it, I should have been grieved to 
give you pain.” 

“Man!” pursued the young man, “you cannot imagine 
what happened next.” 

Throwing off his indifference more and more, Ascott, 
glad of the oportunity to tell his troubles to another, 
confided to the detective his extraordinary adventure with 
Nini Guinon and the threats addressed to him; the con¬ 
sequences of a passing caprice had come to a head. 

Tom Bob preserved his calm as he listened to the story. 

“And then?” he asked, when Ascott stopped to take 
breath. 

“Then,” declared the latter, “it is my duty to give you 
a piece of news, a great piece of news—I am getting married, 
I am marrying Nini Guinon! ” 

“Good luck!” cried the detective, “and when is it to be?” 

“This morning, almost directly.” 

“Bad luck!” ejaculated Tom Bob—“and I was just 
wanting to ask you to breakfast!” 

“Yes,” went on Ascott, with an air of dejection, “in two 
hours’ time I shall be the lawful husband of an old usurer’s 
niece, Pere Moche’s niece; oh! it is a fine kettle of fish!” 

“Ascott,” put in Tom Bob, trying to console him, “you 
are marrying under French law; you know, don’t you? 
that divorce is allowed.” 

Ascott shrugged his shoulders: “That would make things 
no better!” 

“But why?” 

The young man assumed a still more despairing look as 
he looked in the other’s face and announced: 

“My dear Bob, I must tell you all; Nini Guinon is 
enceinte 

Ascott looked so crestfallen that, for all his phlegm, Tom 
Bob all but burst out laughing. However, he dissembled 
his feelings with wonderful self-restraint; rising, he stepped 


A VOLUNTEER WAITER 


243 

up to the young Englishman with an air of heartfelt sym¬ 
pathy and pressed his hand. 

“My dear sir,” he declared, “you are a good and honest 
man!” 

But Ascott had no illusions. “Or an idiot!” he groaned* 

A silence followed, which the detective broke to say: 
“You will please excuse me, I must be going,” adding with 
a spice of irony : 

“I won’t press you to have breakfast with me; I take 
it that after the wedding, a reception. . . .” 

“No!” Ascott interrupted, “don’t make fun of me, Tom 
Bob; the ceremony will be strictly private; naturally it 
does not call for any festivities; the mother, who has to 
signify her consent, only comes to the Maine and to church, 
and I have definitely refused to invite to the breakfast 
anyone whatsoever besides the witnesses.” 

“And you start, no doubt, on your wedding trip after¬ 
wards?” 

“That is to say,” returned the young man, “I take to my 
heels, I go away to hide myself, also I go in order to try 
and get my wife away from the deplorable associations 
connected with her family and relations.” 

As he reached the door Tom Bob turned for a last 
good-bye to his host: “As a matter of fact,” he questioned, 
“do you love her?” 

“No!” replied the rich Englishman gloomily. 

But, modifying his statement and blushing to the roots 
of his hair, he added: 

“Still, I am bound to confess, there is something makes 
her not indifferent to me.” 

Tom Bob raised his hand as if to invoke heaven, and 
in a thrilling voice: 

“The child, perhaps . . .” he suggested. 

“Yes, that is it,” Ascott agreed, and hurrying over the 
good-byes, he returned to his working-table, while the 
detective took his departure. 

****** 

At the far end of the Bois de Vincennes, near the Saint- 
Mande boundary of the park, is to be found, standing 
among trees, a restaurant of quite a rural aspect, and bear¬ 
ing the significant name of The Orange Blossom. Within 
are a number of vast rooms and outside in the gardens 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


244 

arbours of the like ample proportions. It is here in fact 
that the democracy resorts to make merry on the occasion 
of weddings after the religious or civil ceremonies, some¬ 
times one, sometimes the other, occasionally both, have 
have been rapidly despatched. 

This morning evidently the landlord of The Orange 
Blossom was not expecting any great number of customers, 
for he had thrown open only the smallest of his salons. 
In the middle of the room he was laying the table for a 
very limited number of guests: 

“Scurvy devils!” he was grumbling to himself, “what’s 
the good of folks who ask only the marriage witnesses to 
the breakfast—skinflints surely! True they’ve paid in 
advance without any bargaining much, still in my humble 
opinion we’d best keep a sharp eye lifting to see they don’t 
pocket the spoons; mostly indeed I keep the silver locked 
up. A breakfast for six at six francs a head, that don’t 
come to a couple of louis. However, let’s hope we’ll make 
it up on the drinks and cigars.” 

The good man stopped in his work; someone had entered 
the room and was coming towards him. 

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but are you the landlord of 
The Orange Blossom?” 

The innkeeper turned to his questioner and looked him 
up and down disdainfully. The newcomer was not of a 
distinguished appearance—middle-class evidently, soberly 
dressed in black, a man of thirty or thereabouts, wearing * 
a very heavy beard. 

“What do you want?” he asked him. 

“Sir,” asked the stranger in return, “are you by way of 
engaging waiters?” 

“Certainly not,” was the uncompromising answer, “and 
least of all to-day; why, there’s nothing to do—a meal for 
six at six francs a head—I and the maidservant will be 
amply sufficient to wait.” 

“Still I should be very wishful. . . .” 

“Nothing doing!” 

“Not even if I paid?” 

The innkeeper looked wonderingly at the man, surprised 
at such persistency. 

“What d’you mean by that?” 

“Look here,” the would-be waiter explained, “I’m very 


A VOLUNTEER WAITER 


245 

anxious to wait at table, to wait at this table, it’s a business 
I’m keen on. If you’d let me have the tips for myself, I’ll 
pay you twenty francs to make it up to you.” 

The landlord of The Orange Blossom hesitated. The 
man’s offer was a good one for him, too good indeed; that 
was more or less what made him suspicious, for neither of 
the two could fail to know that the tips would never in 
the long run reach any such amount. To tell the truth, it 
was this very fact that inclined the innkeeper to look upon 
the unknown’s application in a favourable light. But he was 
still suspicious. Perhaps the fine fellow had some cute 
idea at the back of his head, or perhaps he wanted to kick 
up a disturbance. Was he a rejected lover, the bride’s fancy 
man, or possibly the brother or kinsman of a former mis¬ 
tress discarded by the bridegroom? One never knows, 
such queer things happen! Once more the innkeeper looked 
hard at this fellow who was so monstrously eager to take 
service with him; he saw the man was calm and composed 
enough and had not a bad face of his own. 

“Look here,” the landlord of The Orange Blossom began 
again, “you’re not humbugging me? you want to pay a 
louis to wait at table, and you don’t mean to play any 
tricks?” 

The unknown laughed frankly in the other’s face: 

“Why, not a bit of it, sir, that I swear; I tell you, it 
amuses me to wait on these people, it’s as you might say, 
it’s . . . it’s a wager I made with my pals.” 

“The tips won’t be heavy,” the innkeeper was charitable 
enough to warn him. 

“That’s all one to me.” 

“Well, my fine fellow,” thought the landlord of The 
Orange Blossom y “you strike me as a mighty queer sort, 
but there don’t seem to be any harm in you; after all, what 
risk do I run?” 

He accepted, and held out his hand to clinch the bargain. 
“Agreed,” he cried, “hand over your louis.” 

“Here you are, sir!” 

“Now„ my lad,” continued the boniface, getting on 
very familiar terms, “go and fetch an apron and a jacket, 
I suppose you have a clean shirt-front; the meal’s ordered 
for half past twelve, but I don’t expect our customers 
before one o’clock; look’ee, here’s where we put the plates; 


246 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

about the glasses, you’d better polish ’em up a bit; as 
you’ve time to spare, that’ll give you something to do, my 
boy. By-the-by, what do they call you?’' 

After a moment’s hesitation, the new waiter named 
himself Daniel. 

“Well, Daniel, get to work; work’s the cure for bore¬ 
dom, you know.” 

No sooner was he left alone in the salon where the break¬ 
fast was to be served than this volunteer who had got 
himself taken on in so odd a fashion dropped into a chair 
and gave a long-drawn sigh! 

“Ah!” he ejaculated; “here I am, but it’s an expen¬ 
sive treat; a louis! no doubt my poor watch, thanks to 
‘my uncle’s’ generosity, raised me the money without over 
much difficulty—but when shall I ever get my dear ticker 
back?” Then: “Good Lord!” he groaned, “how this false 
beard does tickle; if only it don’t come ungummed while 
I’m waiting at table!” 

He got up and went over to a mirror to make sure his 
disguise was holding firm. He gazed long at his reflection 
in the glass, his eyes full of melancholy. 

“I did well to adopt this travesty,” he told himself, “I 
am absolutely unrecognizable”—and he was right. The 
new' waiter of The Orange Blossom was, in fact, no other 
than Jerome Fandor. 

Ever since the dreadful trial he had gone through, since 
the day of Elisabeth Dollon’s death, the journalist had 
been plunged in a state of terrible prostration. Wild 
with grief, he had felt his sanity leaving him; all his high 
courage, his generous ardour, had departed, and again and 
again the thought of suicide had haunted his mind. It 
had called for all the energy that formed the basis of his 
character to stay him from proceeding to such dread ex¬ 
tremities. 

Little by little, however, as his will power mastered his 
dejection, a deep, fierce anger seized him and grew stronger 
every day. He had a mission to fulfill; this he realized, 
and his purposes grew clear and definite. Henceforth it 
was not solely his friend Juve he must rescue from his 
unhappy plight, but there was Elisabeth’s fearful death he 
was called upon to avenge. And as he considered these 
two duties, one as dear to his heart as the other, Fandor 


A VOLUNTEER WAITER 247 

recognized that in reality he was pursuing one and the 
same object, for indeed the main author of all these calami¬ 
ties, the responsible agent, the being who by his sorceries 
had sown mourning and desolation round about him, was 
still and always the mysterious, the ever elusive Fantomas! 
Oh! to unmask the monster, to come face to face with him, 
to discover in which of the group among whom he worked 
and manoeuvred was really and truly incarnate the mysteri¬ 
ous malefactor, this was what the journalist swore to himself 
to achieve! At all costs he must get done with it; to 
make an end was necessary, indispensable, and that with 
the briefest possible delay. 

Fandor was filled with a new hope. Though still in 
hiding from the police and living the life of a pariah, he 
was yet able to glean occasional information from casual 
conversations and newspapers, and he noted a certain 
veering round of public opinion in favour of his friend. It 
was impossible, people were saying, that Juve, a prisoner 
in the Sante, could be guilty of all the murders and robberies 
ascribed to the agency of Fantomas. To this was added 
Fandor’s definite and undoubted discovery of certain ac¬ 
tivities of the gang at whose head old Moche figured. 
Though kept somewhat at arm’s length by the members 
of this gang, the journalist did nevertheless succeed in 
learning a number of facts that enabled him to prosecute 
his investigations on clear and precise lines. Now he had 
lately acquired the certainty that Pere Moche counted for 
much in the profitable enterprises engineered by Fantomas. 

But where was Fantomas? Not far off, for certain! 
Yet, with equal certainty, more difficult to track down, 
more elusive than ever. Nor was it only Fandor who was 
at fault. The American detective Tom Bob was in the 
same predicament. In fact, the latter, despite his fine 
audacity and his first triumphs, had not continued his 
successes. For quite a long time now people had ceased 
to talk about him; he seemed to have lost interest in the 
war he had declared against Fantomas. 

Furthermore Fandor had observed that the American, 
who on his first arrival had promised him his protection 
and support, had suddenly left off seeing him, indeed made 
little or no concealment of the fact that he no longer 
desired to be in touch with him. Why this change? with 


248 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

what object in view? Was Tom Bob ashamed to avow 
himself beaten? or was he hoping, alone, by himself, to 
run Fantomas to earth? 

Such were the young man’s thoughts when the landlord 
of The Orange Blossom suddenly burst into the eating room. 

“Daniel,” he cried, “you must make haste, my lad! 
here’s the wedding party coming, they’re not late after all; 
quick, put on your apron and jacket, breakfast will be 
served instanter!” 

Two landaus had just drawn up at the entrance to the 
gardens, two simple, unpretending vehicles, with none of 
your wide plate-glass windows, none of your big carriage 
lamps at the four corners of the coach. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 

As Ascott desired the wedding was carried out in the 
strictest privacy. The party reached the Maine at an 
early hour. Ascott had for witnesses his man servant 
John, and a casual secretary from the Consulate, bound 
over to the closest secrecy. Moreover, the young man in 
question, a person of much discretion who saw how things 
were with half an eye, had vanished immediately after 
the ceremony, saying he did not care to attend the break¬ 
fast, understanding in fact that his absence would not be 
taken in ill part, but very much the reverse. Nini Guinon’s 
witnesses were her uncle, Pere Moche, recruited again for 
the purpose, and the vagabond Bouzille, who had been 
fetched from a drinking shop at Menilmontant, and dressed 
up for the occasion in a second-hand frock coat. The 
formalities at the Maine were quickly completed, the 
party adjourned to hear a mass at the nearest church, and 
then set off for the Bois de Vincennes. 

The last act of the grotesque adventure, the wedding 
breakfast, remained to be staged. Ascott, to Mme. Gui- 
non’s bitter chagrin, had emphatically refused to make her 
acquaintance, thereby making the good woman desper¬ 
ately unhappy. Thus she had barely caught a glimpse of 
her son-in-law, when at the Mairie she authorized her 
daughter as a minor to pronounce a definitive and binding 
“Yes.” Ascott, in fact, had shown himself quite uncom¬ 
promising all the morning. For this marriage, this hole 
and corner marriage, so to speak, in which he had syste¬ 
matically avoided all publicity, he had not chosen that his 
bride should wear the orthodox white gown sacred to such 
occasions. In a word, the ceremony was a gloomy, funereal 
function, depressing to the last degree. 

It was abundantly clear the bridegroom was fulfilling a 
duty, carrying out an irksome obligation; indeed, the whole 

249 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


250 

thing wore so lugubrious an aspect that Nini Guinon began 
to feel anxious, asking herself if really and truly she had 
acted wisely in following old Moche’s advice, for at the 
bottom of her heart she was far from convinced of the 
advantages to accrue for her from her union with the rich 
Englishman. On the drive to the restaurant, sitting silent 
in her corner of the carriage, Nini was thinking all the 
while: 

“If I’m in for a bad time, if old Moche has got me in a 
hole, I’ll make him pay for it.” 

However, Bouzille, who had kept quiet enough during 
the morning, began to liven up on arriving at The Orange 
Blossom. He smiled broadly at the regiment of bottles 
drawn up on a sideboard, and, like the good-natured ninny 
he was, having never an inkling of the preposterous situa¬ 
tion of the bridal pair and those about them, he clapped 
his hands gaily, suggesting: 

“Well, good folks, about time for a bit of a spree, eh? 
what if we cracked a bottle now before going any further?” 

Ascott, for all his pre-occupation, could not help smiling; 
in fact, if there was any one person in the whole crew that 
revolted him less profoundly than the rest, it was certainly 
this merry-hearted tramp; the fellow was rough and brutal, 
but he seemed to be an honest man. On the contrary, 
Ascott felt greatly embarrassed at the idea of sitting down 
to table with his servant; in his own mind he decided there 
was only one thing to be done—to send the man about his 
business that very evening. Besides, The Orange Blossom 
itself was little to his taste. What a place! What a 
vulgar show! 

Still, he must make the best of things, and taking 
Bouzille’s hint, Ascott called the waiter and demanded 
drinks. And it was no other than Fandor who stepped 
forward to take the rich Englishman’s order. 

Without more ado, Ascott took his seat, putting Nini 
on his right and old Moche on his left; this done, he kept 
his eyes fixed on the table-cloth, not knowing in the least 
which way to look or what to do. Bouzille’s fine enthusi¬ 
asm had suddenly quieted down, while the rest of the com¬ 
pany were not “playing up” one bit: there they sat, each 
more stockish than the other. If anybody had come in 
hopes of diversion, he was finding himself singularly disap- 


THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 


251 

pointed. John, sitting facing his master, dared not utter 
a word, Moche never opened his lips, Nini was cross and 
angry, Ascott pale and silent as the grave! 

Fandor, with the landlord’s help—for the journalist had 
proved himself from the very start a most indifferent waiter 
—served the first course, during which not half-a-dozen 
words were spoken. The landlord, when he found himself 
in the kitchen again, alone with Fandor, could not hide 
his surprise. 

“For the last twenty years,” he declared, “I’ve had wed¬ 
ding-parties here, I’ve known customers of every sort 
and kind, but anything like those folks yonder—never! 
They couldn’t be more dismal if it was a funeral they’d 
been at!” 

Meanwhile, Ascott sat deep in thought; he was realizing 
the appalling folly he had been guilty of in marrying Nini 
Guinon. 

“How could I ever for one single instant have entertained 
such an idea . . . and put it into execution?” 

But the unfortunate young man quickly called to mind 
that, if he had not followed the injunctions of Pere Moche, 
the plaint lodged by the Guinon family would have taken 
its course, and that would have equally involved disgrace, 
disgrace more terrible still, more irremediable even than 
the grotesque marriage he had just contracted. Ascott 
saw clear now—he was the victim of an odious piece of 
blackmailing, an abominable plot. He was so worked up 
he felt himself prepared to do the maddest things, he 
meditated going straight to the Procureur de la Republique 
to denounce the whole business. . . . But the unhappy 
man, when he looked closer into this last desperate resource, 
realized that the situation was past cure, that no one could 
help him, that he was simply a victim, and a ridiculous 
victim at that, and that, in fact, there was something else, 
something more serious, which after all tied his hands and 
gave him pause. Nini Guinon was enceinte; he must not, 
he could not forget that fact. Ascott could stand no more 
of it; still controlling his feelings, he leant over to his wife, 
sitting next him, and whispered: 

“I am a little unwell, so I am going to withdraw into 
some room near; I count on being left to myself, and shall 
expect you to join me there when you have finished break- 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


252 

fast.” Nini had scarcely gathered the sense of her hus¬ 
band’s words before the latter had disappeared. 

In a moment, as if by enchantment, all recovered their 
spirits; they clinked glasses, they drained bumpers, they 
ate with a better appetite, gaiety reigned on every face: 
decidedly, the English milord had done well to leave them 
to themselves; they would be more of a family party, 
more at their ease. 

“Say, Pere Moche,” observed Bouzille, “he don’t strike 
me as being much of a gallant, your niece’s husband! how’s 
she going to hit it off, little Nini, with a lump of wood like 
that, eh?” 

“Don’t you trouble your head,” broke in the girl, “I 
know what I’ve got to do.” 

Then, as everybody stopped talking to listen: 

“Jabber away amongst yourselves,” she growled, “I’m 
going to have a talk with Pere Moche.” 

The talk became general, while a very animated discussion 
began between Nini and her reputed uncle. 

“If you think it’s any fun,” began the young woman, 
“this marriage you’ve brought about, I tell you I’m about 
fed up with it already. I don’t give myself eight and 
forty hours before I hook it from my husband.” 

Moche shrugged his shoulders: 

“Nini, you’re a born fool: a bit of patience, my lass, 
and you’ll see Pere Moche was in the right.” Then, in a 
lower tone: “You’re far too pretty and too clever to 
spend all your young days among this crowd, a parcel of 
rotters who’re good for nothing but talking loud and getting 
drunk. I’ve told you, haven’t I, I’d make you rich, I’d 
make a great lady of you, more than that, a queen of beauty, 
a queen of Paris, a queen of society! Play your cards, Nini, 
listen to me. . . .” 

A gleam of covetousness flashed in the girl’s eyes. 

“I shall be rich?” she questioned, “I shall have the 
nibs?” 

Moche went on: 

“Rich, and better than rich, my girl; but for that don’t 
go and play the fool; just keep yourself in hand for another 
nine months. Your brat must come into the world strong 
and healthy; after that there’ll be something new to think 
about, you can trust Pere Moche for that!” 


THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 


253 


While the young Englishman’s queer helpmeet and the 
enigmatical personage who had passed himself off as her 
uncle for his own ends were thus debating future projects, 
Jerome Fandor, under pretence of paying every attention 
to the customers’ wants, was never far from the table, 
picking up scraps of talk as he hovered near. And in spite 
of himself, Fandor could not keep his eyes off M. Moche’s 
face. As he stood over him, he could, for the first time, 
observe otherwise than through the glass of his spectacles 
the mysterious old fellow’s eyes. And they disconcerted 
the journalist extremely, their clear, cold, steely glance 
perplexed him beyond measure. Most certainly Fanifor 
could trace no likeness there, he had no recollection of 
having seen that expression before; yet it seemed to him 
that a person like the old business agent of the Rue Saint- 
Fargeau, whose caricature of a face betrayed the man’s com¬ 
monness of type, could not have such a look of the eyes as 
he actually had. 

And, as a fact, who and what was this man who—Fandor 
saw it all—had conceived so Machiavellian a scheme as 
that of marrying the street wench Nini Guinon to Ascott, 
the wealthy Englishman of the Rue Fortuny, and who, 
having conceived, had carried it through! 

Pere Moche . . . Fantomas? ...?...? 

Fandor, as the result of a series of logical deductions, 
possibly also through giving a certain weight to the pre¬ 
sentiments that rarely deceived him, had come to ask 
himself if the man of the Rue Saint-Fargeau, really too 
mysterious a personage, was not one of the incarnations of 
Fantomas himself. Since he had been watching his man, 
and particularly since he had seen his eyes and their ex¬ 
pression, Fandor clung more and more closely to this 
opinion. 

Ah! if only he were right! if he had discovered the 
villain? That would be an extraordinarily fine trump card 
for him in the grim game he was playing with Fantomas as 
adversary! And now, many hitherto unexplained details 
recurred to his memory. Notably he recalled the strange 
apparition of the man in the black mask on that terrible 
night he had spent in M. Moche’s garret. He did not forget 
how on that occasion Fantomas, under pretence of safe¬ 
guarding him from harm, had involved him in the direst 



THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


254 

peril, evidently in the hope that the police would discover 
him hidden in the Chinese lantern. 

“Why,” he thought presently, “but why did not Fan¬ 
tomas kill me when he had this chance? that is what I 
cannot understand.” 

But, when he examined the question more deeply, Fan- 
dor realized the fact that Fantomas’ crimes invariably 
had a double object—to get rid of an obnoxious adversary 
and at the same time to throw suspicions on the dead man 
that went to prove by their very nature the innocence of 
some accomplice of Fantomas or of Fantomas himself. Thus 
he pondered, all the while carrying on with the utmost awk¬ 
wardness his duties as a waiter, under the wary and ever 
watchful eye of the landlord of The Orange Blossom. 

At the same time Fandor did not allow his attention to 
be absorbed solely by the conversation between Moche 
and Nini. A short while before Ascott had left the rest 
of the party—it was an incident which had, in fact, con¬ 
tributed not a little to the rising nausea that had driven 
the young Englishman from the table—two of the apache 
gang, the same two, “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” who 
had signalized themselves in the Silver Goblet affair and at 
the unpleasant interview with the Police Commissary, 
appearing unexpectedly within sight of the window, had 
been invited to join the wedding feast by the irrepressible 
Bouzille. The two intruders were now seated at the table, 
and the soi-disant waiter made a point of plying them with 
drink and incidentally catching up any fragments of their 
talk that struck him as being to the point. The apaches, 
in ambiguous terms, but in a fashion explicit enough for 
Fandor’s comprehension, were discussing recent enterprises 
in which the gang had been mixed up. It became very 
evident that a unanimous and general feeling of suspicion 
and ill-will towards Fantomas was growing up among the 
criminal confraternity. Fantomas, they muttered, used 
everybody for his own purposes, forced each man to risk 
his skin and in the end compensated nobody. In covert 
phrases, too, they spoke of Pere Moche, who, they hinted, 
must know all about Fantomas, and whose task was always 
to pour oil on the troubled waters, who was for ever putting 
off till to-morrow payments that should have been made 
yesterday, in one word playing a double game. 


THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 


255 

“Oh!” grumbled the “Gasman,” while Fandor was re¬ 
filling his glass, “things can’t go on no longer like this, 
to-morrow night and the hour sounds for definite and final 
explanations; we want our money, Fantomas will have to 
answer our questions.” 

“Bull’s-eye” bent over to his comrade, and in his hoarse 
voice asked: 

“So the rendez-vous still holds good at the same place, 
eh?” 

At that moment Fandor was obliged to go away, M. 
Moche was calling him; nevertheless the journalist had 
gathered from a remark of the “Gasman’s” that the follow¬ 
ing night there was to be a meeting of the gang on the 
outskirts of the city, close down by the banks of the Seine 
at the far end of Alfort. 

A superb limousine had drawn up at the back of the 
restaurant of The Orange Blossom. It was about four of 
the afternoon: the breakfast had resolved itself into a 
drunken debauch, a horrid uproar of ribald songs disturbed 
the quiet of the establishment. Bouzille was the noisiest 
of them all; the wine bottles had been left on the table 
at the end of the meal, in an hour’s time they had to be 
replaced. Ascott, heedless of the whole riot, had paid with¬ 
out a murmur. 

Ten minutes ago Nini Guinon, at Moche’s urgent sugges¬ 
tion, had gone to join her husband, who had spent a strange 
afternoon for a bridegroom, shut up alone in a room on the 
first floor, anxiously awaiting, not so much the return of 
his wife, as the arrival of the motor-car he had ordered, 
eager to escape from Paris with all speed and hide himself 
and his intolerable situation in some remote comer of the 
provinces. Hardly had Nini appeared, all flushed and 
excited, before Ascott, looking her coldly up and down, 
ordered her: 

“Put on your hat, we are going.” 

Furious at bottom to be so treated, but scared by her 
husband’s manner, and also remembering old Moche’s 
counsels, she obeyed, muttering curses under her breath; 
“He shall pay me for this, come the day I can bring him 
to heel.” 

Hastily she put on a long dust-cloak, settled her hat in 


256 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

place and followed her husband and the two, without a 
word of good-bye to anyone, got into the car, which started 
away at once. Pere Moche, however, had run up hastily 
to see the last of them; with a wave of the hand he bade 
farewell to the newly-wed pair, a broad, ironical smile on 
his lips. 

But suddenly he started back. An explosion had rung 
out, half an inch more and Pere Moche would have received 
a bullet full in the face. Luckily he had foreseen the shot 
and ducked in time. With amazing agility, Moche sprang 
at his assailant, whom he hurled to the ground, keeping 
him down with a knee pressed hard on the fellow’s chest. 

“Brigand! scoundrel! I don’t know what stops me from 
killing you here and now!” 

Who was this man Pere Moche had mastered so adroitly? 
No other than Paulet, Nini Guinon’s lover, the white¬ 
faced, pale-eyed scamp who had assuredly been completely 
sacrificed in the old usurer’s sinister machinations. With 
calm ferocity the latter was now brandishing the revolver 
he had snatched from the apache’s hands. 

“One word, one movement,” he declared, “and I blow 
your brains out, as you tried to blow out mine the day of 
the bank messenger’s death. Villain! murderer! Remember 
I hold your life in my hands, that I can do for you where I 
choose and when I choose.” 

“Scoundrel!” vociferated Paulet, “you’ve robbed me of 
my doxy, what d’you think is to become of me now?” 

“Fool! she wanted to be done with you!” 

“Ah! if you hadn’t hid her away, you old rascal, if only 
I could have seen her!” 

But Moche ordered him to hold his tongue. It needed 
all his strength to keep the apache down. Paulet, savage 
and desperate, had managed with his right hand to grasp 
the barrel of the revolver, and was holding it away from 
his body; it looked as if he might renew the struggle, 
perhaps floor the old man in his turn. The two wretches 
fought furiously for some seconds, now one, now the other 
momentarily getting the upper hand; the two rolled over 
and over in the dust. At last Moche succeeded in gripping 
the young apache’s throat between his powerful fingers, 
after forcing him to let go the revolver. 

“Die, then,” yelled Moche, “die, as you won’t give in!” 


THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 


257 

“Oh! oh!” stammered Paulet in a broken voice, “Curse 
it, curse my luck! will no one save me?” 

Suddenly the two combatants were dragged apart. In 
answer to Paulet’s cry for help, someone shouted in a ringing 
voice: “I will.” 

The someone had picked up the revolver that had been 
dropped in the struggle and stood with it in his hand. 
Dazed and dumbfounded, Paulet gazed open-mouthed at 
his preserver, whom he did not know. Pere Moche, for his 
part, saw that the person who had just intervened between 
them in the battle was no other than the servant at the 
restaurant who had waited at breakfast. 

Moche stared at the man, scrutinizing his face with con¬ 
centrated attention; suddenly he broke into a cry: 

“Fandor, in heaven’s name!” he exclaimed, “you black¬ 
guard, I didn’t recognize you before. . . .” 

At the name of Fandor, Paulet sprang up and ranged 
himself instinctively by the journalist’s side; while Pere 
Moche realized the time was not come to continue the dis¬ 
cussion. Besides which, the landlord of The Orange Blos¬ 
som now came running up from the penetralia of his 
establishment with very natural curiosity: 

“What is up now?” he demanded, “I seem to have 
heard an explosion, like a revolver shot.” 

Mine host looked hard at the three men, standing there 
with tom clothes, all filthy and smothered in dust; but 
Fandor was ready with a plausible explanation. He gave 
his account with perfect self-possession: 

“It’s nothing, landlord, only the customer’s car burst a 
tyre just now and we’ve been helping to mend it; it was 
a case of creeping in under the chassis, that’s how we’re a 
bit dirty, but a clothes brush’ll soon put that to rights!” 

The landlord asked no more questions, and the four men 
returned quietly to the restaurant, but three of them were 
well aware that this tranquillity was only apparent. It 
was but a truce before the battle, for war seemed hence¬ 
forth to be definitely declared. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 

It was nine o’clock, and the storm was at its height. The 
rain came down in torrents, the wind blew fiercely, lightning 
blazed and thunder bellowed. The streets were deserted, 
for a man must indeed have had urgent business to call 
him abroad on such a night. 

Apparently such was Jerome Fandor’s case, for the 
journalist was walking fast and resolutely under the pitiless 
downpour along the quays bordering the Seine in the direc¬ 
tion of Charenton. As he fought his way against the gale, 
the belated pedestrian was growling between his teeth: 

“Good lord! how my ears sting with the cold! and 
how pitch dark it is! Screw up my eyes as I will, I can’t 
see a thing. All the same, I’ve got to get to Alfort; but 
shall I ever find the rendez-voits in this darkness, I wonder! 
All the same, how right I was to attend the marriage of that 
fool Ascott with the unspeakable Nini Guinon! What a 
wedding! and what a crew! And old Moche! what a clever 
fellow he must be to keep this gang of scoundrels on the 
job, always promising the fellows money and never giving 
them the pay for the crimes they do at his bidding! Oh! 
he’s one in a thousand, he is, the old money-lender of the 
Rue Saint-Fargeau! If I hadn’t important reasons for 
not wishing him to see me, I’d just go straight, fair and 
square, to the abandoned quarry where the confabulation’s 
to be between the ‘Gasman,’ ‘Bulls-eye,’ Paulet and the rest 
of that gang of ruffians. But surely I hear footsteps coming 
up behind me. Best turn off the road now and make to the 
right to get time to find a hiding place. Mustn’t let yourself 
be seen, friend Fandor. True, all these chaps are your 
‘pals’ and more or less well disposed; but ’ware Moche, if 
he spotted you, especially after yesterday’s business, there’d 
be trouble, and that wouldn’t help on poor Juve’s affairs!” 

All the while, as he soliloquized thus, Fandor was moving 
258 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 


259 

on as fast as he could in the deep shadows that helped to 
conceal him, sometimes crawling, sometimes walking. Still, 
he was the first to reach the rendez-vous. It was a sinister 
spot. A sand quarry lay there abandoned, a hundred yards 
from the bank of the river. A strike of the quarrymen 
had been on foot for a week, and there appeared no present 
likelihood of work being resumed. Fantomas’ henchmen 
were aware of the fact and knew that nobody would come 
to disturb them. Besides, the river was close at hand, and 
if interruptors appeared, so much the worse for them! 
They would make a hole in the water, whether they liked 
a bath or no. 

But the look of things would not have been half so grim 
if, moored by the shore, a dredger had not shown its huge, 
dark bulk on the black water, lifting to the sky its slanting 
spar with an endless chain running along its length carrying 
the great buckets that dredge up the mud and detritus from 
the bed of the stream. 

A sound of footsteps. A cold sweat broke out on Fan- 
dor’s temples; like all truly brave men, he was not rash 
and deemed it foolish to risk his life without gain for any¬ 
body or anything whatsoever. Now it was very certain 
that, if he was seen by Moche, who knew him, and now 
treated him openly as an enemy, he would be denounced to 
the apaches, who would no longer take him to be one of 
their own crew and would dub him a traitor. A summary 
execution would be the sequel. But what would become 
of Juve then? Anyway, what was to be done now under 
these difficult circumstances? The intrepid journalist asked 
himself the question anxiously, calling up all his ingenuity 
and cunning to discover an immediate answer, for it was not 
hours now that counted, but seconds. 

The footsteps came nearer. They were within a hundred 
yards and the new arrivals would soon be able to pierce the 
heavy shadows that, luckily for Fandor, still hung, a pro¬ 
tective screen, between them and the reporter. A happy 
thought! a really brilliant idea! Those great buckets 
(empty or full, what matter?) that swung in the wind along 
the dredger’s spar, were they not observatories all ready 
made, so excellently adapted to the purpose that assuredly 
it would never occur to the most suspiciously minded of 
the gang that a spy, however rash, should have chosen so 


26 o 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


perilous a hiding place. Fandor did not lose a moment. 
Rapidly and dexterously the young man hauled himself 
up by the chain and had very soon reached the highest 
point of the spar, where he settled himself, crouching down 
in the topmost bucket of all. By great good luck it was 
empty. From there he could both see and hear, while re¬ 
maining entirely incognito himself. 

He was only just in time. The apaches were arriving 
one after the other in quick succession. “Big Ernestine’* 
was the first; behind her came Paulet, the murderer of the 
bank messenger, the “Gasman,” “Bull’s-eye,” the “Beadle,” 
and other members of the gang, after them, five or six new 
recruits, whom Fandor only knew by sight, and who had 
as yet done little to get themselves talked about. These 
were whispering together under their breath. The rest 
seemed quite at home, they believed themselves as much 
alone as in their regular haunts, and their voices swelled 
to the loudest diapason of indignation. 

“Eleven gone, and the dirty scamp’s not come! it’s over 
long the thief’s been chousing us all with his promises he 
never keeps. Won’t stand the cheat any more, what say 
you, mates?” 

“If old man Moche tries on another of his tricks to¬ 
night, I’ll do him in to-morrow!” 

“Hark there! what’s that?” 

“It’s the old humbug here at last! oh, ho! his pockets are 
bulging with brass; that’s why he’s been so slow; it’s over 
heavy for him, he can’t walk!”—and the yells and impre¬ 
cations broke out afresh. 

A small, mean, cringing figure, his head almost buried 
in the collar of his great-coat, his hands clasped in a sup¬ 
pliant attitude, the old usurer listened quietly to the re¬ 
criminations that rose on all sides, guessing that for sure he 
would be in the tightest of tight places before long. 

“Good day to you, mates all,” he greeted the angry 
crowd, and said no more for the moment. But, after a brief 
pause, seeing looks of anger and suspicion scanning him 
from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, he added 
in a whining voice: 

“Beg pardon, but we’d be better elsewhere: suppose we 
adjourn to the deck of the Marie-Salope (the dredger) over 
there?” 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 


261 

“All agreed; only “Bull’s-eye” slipped in a question: 
“There’s nobody there?” 

A general shout reassured him: “Why, who’d ever dare 
to come?” 

Still, By way of further precaution, “Big Ernestine” 
climbed down into the lighter, moored in the wake of the 
dredger, into which the buckets when working emptied 
their contents. Another minute and the woman was up 
again, satisfied with her inspection, and declaring: 

“All clear!” 

But Moche now pointed out that they were wasting 
precious time, gassing without saying anything to the 
point. 

“We’re here to talk business, so let’s begin.” 

The company took seats as they best could, some on the 
bulwarks, some on the deck-planks of the dredger, forming 
a circle in the middle of which Pere Moche took his stand— 
and the trial opened. “Trial” is the right word, for truly 
the speaker was pleading for his life before his judges 
seated round him, whom even a superficial observer would 
have found no difficulty in recognizing as ready to go to 
the most violent extremities. 

It was the “Beadle” who undertook the prosecution. 
All the while brandishing before the face of the culprit, 
who stood impassive before him, his redoubtable clenched 
fists, the weight of which was familiar to all the onlookers 
and which without an effort could have felled the unhappy 
old man to the ground, he began with an artful reference 
that instantly won him the sympathy of his audience. 

“Pere Moche,” he said, “you are come, and that is well, 
for it behooves us once for all to understand each other, 
us and you. You can see for yourself, that, among the 
chosen few of our band, one only is missing, poor ‘Beauty 
Boy,’ and if he has been nabbed, if he is in the stone 
jug, waiting till the bigwigs send him overseas, that is 
entirely your fault; I don’t mean to say you sold him to 
the tecs, but you left him without coin, without a yellow 
boy, without a stiver, and forced him to muck it somehow 
or other, so that. . . 

A triple round of applause allowed the orator to take 
breath, which he did long and noisily, and to add another 
touch: 


262 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“Yes, if ‘Beauty Boy’ was pinched working the Yankees 
on the Trans-Atlantic boat-train, and he so clever fingered, 
it was because he didn’t have the usual stuff with him. 
If he hadn’t been forced to pick up just anything he could 
to fill his belly, he would never have. . . .” 

Faces grew ugly, fists clenched, every eye glittered with 
murderous light. In his hiding-place Fandor congratu¬ 
lated himself on his presence at this unexpected scene. 
Moche seemed to be racking his brains to find a way to 
exculpate himself. Still the old ruffian managed to con¬ 
ceal his distress, and it was without any great difficulty he 
succeeded in breaking in on the “Beadle’s” eloquence and 
making himself heard instead. 

“Come, come, you’re never going to eat me, comrades? 
I’ve got a tough hide, you know, and you’d only get a 
belly-ache. Now what makes you go howling at me that 
gate when I’m your best chum? What have you against 
me, now?” 

“The infernal cheek of the chap!” snorted out “Big 
Ernestine,” looking as red as a poppy. 

“But come now, haven’t I done everything I ought? 
Sure enough, Fantomas, who set us to work, don’t pay us 
as we hoped he would. There’s been some good business 
done, I admit, and without you, without us, it would never 
have come off. Coin’s been handled by the chief, and it’s 
all stuck to his fingers, we’ve not had a chance yet to touch 
it. But I’m not Fantomas, I’m only his lieutenant, and 
to pass on your complaint to him, I should have to know 
where he is. . . .” 

“You don’t know where Fantomas is? D’ye think we’re 
going to swallow that humbug?” vociferated “Big Ernes¬ 
tine.” 

“No, I do not know, my pretty dear, and if I did, I 
should have told you long ago, if only to satisfy your 
curiosity.” 

“It’s not a plant, that?” asked the “Gasman,” half in¬ 
clined to come to the old fellow’s help. 

“I swear it isn’t! You think I know more than you do, 
and that my lot’s more enviable. Nobody so blind as those 
who won’t see. I tell you my look-out is just as pitiable 
as yours. He owes you your pay, well, he owes me mine, 
too. All I’ve been able to do for you is to hinder your 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 


263 

getting disheartened and thinking Fantomas doesn’t care 
for you any more. Well, /’m convinced Fantomas still 
looks after us and thinks a deal of us. If we don’t see him, 
if we have no direct news from him, it’s because he has 
powerful reasons for acting as he does. . . . What, isn’t 
a chap like him cleverer than all the lot of us?” 

“Hear, hear! Fantomas for ever!” 

“Well and good! Fantomas for ever! ... So then, I 
still deserve your confidence, eh? I was to come here to 
explain things. Haven’t I come? did I shirk away?” 

“That’s true enough; but where is the Chief?” 

“Where he is precisely, he’d be a mighty cute customer 
who could tell us and be sure he was not mistaken. What is 
unfortunately certain is that he must have been put in 
confinement as from time to time we receive orders from 
the Sante prison, orders we have, in fact, always faithfully 
carried out. And all the same, with Fantomas, we are 
bound to look for the most amazing surprises. ... Oh! if 
only we could see him!” 

“We can if we want to!” declared the “Beadle” in a 
tone of conviction. 

Everyone was startled at this bold statement spoken 
with such confidence, while Fandor felt his curiosity more 
keenly excited than ever. 

“Why, yes, we can see him. If Fantomas writes from 
the Sante, that means he is there. If he’s there, we must 
manage his escape, that’s all.” 

“You’re not a bit gone in the head, eh?” someone broke 
the silent pause of stupefaction that followed. 

“I! not a bit of it; I’ve got my notion, and I’m just 
telling you what it is, and if you’re not chicken-hearted, it’ll 
come off. It’s not so hard as all that to find a crack 
Fantomas can slip out of gaol by. . . . Suppose we collar 
him as they’re taking him along down the passages in the 
Palais de Justice to be examined, eh? We’ve done bigger 
jobs than that before now. Only. . . 

“Only?” 

“Only we must have a plan, and it’s none so easy to 
find a good one. It’s not to praise up Moche I’m saying 
it, but there, he’s a mighty clever chap, and can read a heap 
of big old books and write like a schoolmaster.” 

Modie was flattered and gave a little nod of the head, 


264 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

as much as to say they were quite in the right about him 
and the profundity of his acquirements. Then the “Beadle” 
seeing his audience hanging on his lips, went on with re¬ 
doubled ardour: 

“Well, then, to my thinking we shall do nothing to rights 
without Moche; let him make out a plan and we’ll carry 
it throught, dead or alive. I have spoken. Fantomas for 
ever!” 

“Fantomas for ever!” 

Looking on from his point of vantage, Fandor was pro¬ 
digiously interested in what he now saw and heard; for 
all the wealth of the Indies he would not have surrendered 
his place to anyone whatsoever. But suddenly the jour¬ 
nalist felt his heart stop beating at a thought that filled 
him with consternation; he shuddered as he reflected on 
the apaches’ new project. If, by any chance, this bold 
scheme of rescue which the gang proposed proved successful, 
it was not Fantomas they would lay hands on, but simply 
Juve! The fact was, the Fantomas of the Sante —Moche, 
indeed, must know this as certainly as Fandor did himself 
—was not Fantomas at all, but Juve, and once the police- 
officer fell into the power of the apaches, he was irreme¬ 
diably lost, whether they took him for Juve or for Fantomas, 
their perjured and bankrupt paymaster. 

Fandor had guessed right; this he gathered from the 
decision the artful old schemer now pronounced in half a 
dozen short, crisp words: “I’ll take it on; to-morrow we 
meet again.” 

“Where?” 

“I don’t know yet, I must think it over, and once my 
plan is settled, I will let you know by Paulet. Is that 
agreed?” 

“Agreed!” 

“Nothing more to do here then. Let’s be off and have 
a cosy drink; it’ll be warmer than here, what say you?” 

“Now you’re talking. Let’s hook it”—and thus the sitting 
was dissolved. Threatening dire disaster to Pere Moche at 
the beginning, it had ended finally in a blaze of triumph 
for that astute scoundrel. 

Fandor found it hard to recover from his wonder and 
surprise; true, his poor body was aching and stiff and 
cramped, and his mind was feeling the numbing effects of 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 265 

this physical distress, patiently borne, but prolonged al¬ 
most beyond human endurance. However, Fandor was 
young and energetic, and very soon, by dint of clinging to 
the chain and so stretching himself vigorously, he had 
restored the requisite suppleness to legs and arms and 
loins; he was making ready, grasping the spar of the Marie- 
Salope, to slip down to the deck when, looking before him, 
he caught sight of a shadowy figure returning hurriedly to 
the dredger. In a moment he was curled up once more in 
the bottom of the bucket, but by tilting this over side¬ 
ways, he managed to secure a still better view than before. 

It was a wise precaution, and it proved useful. There 
was no doubt about it; some member of the gang was com¬ 
ing back, after leaving his confederates under some pretext 
or other, to return to Paris by themselves. But who was it? 
and what was he after? 

For all the cool presence of mind that characterized 
him, Fandor with difficulty stifled the cry that rose to his 
lips. It was Moche! it was indeed Moche, who, after 
accompanying the apaches for five hundred yards or so as 
far as the fork of the roads that lead in different directions 
to Paris and to Alfort, had announced in the most natural 
way in the world: 

“I am expected at Alfort, so I must leave you here. I’m 
not in your bad books any more?” 

“No, no! ... to-morrow’s the day?” 

“To-morrow or next day, not a day later. So once 
again: Fantomas for ever!” 

“Yes, Fantomas for ever!” echoed “Big Ernestine,” 
“. . . but only if he pays up and can prove he hasn’t 
choused us!” 

“By God! yes, we’ll keep our eyes lifting,” added the 
“Gasman,” completing the other worthy’s meaning. 

“Till we meet again!” 

“So long then!”—and Moche, without rousing the 
slightest suspicion, had contrived to start back on his 
road to the dredger. What was he coming to do? Some¬ 
thing underhand, evidently, for instead of advancing as 
the first time, walking quietly on his two feet, he was flat 
on his belly, crawling on the ground, as he had been doing 
for the last two hundred yards or more. Whose notice 
was the old scamp trying to evade? Doubtless it was one 


266 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


of the companions he had just left that he feared. Fandor 
was burning with impatience, albeit the temperature had 
fallen at the approach of the dawn, which was due in 
another hour. Moreover, a heavy, drenching rain-storm 
was beginning, accompanied by vivid flashes of forked 
lightning and reverberating thunderclaps. 

On reaching the dredger, Moche abandoned his serpentine 
mode of advance and rising to his feet, stepped on to the 
deck and made straight for the winding-crank fixed at 
the bottom end of the spar, to put the buckets in motion. 
He took the handle in both hands and with legs wide 
astraddle and back hunched up, set to work to turn. 
Looking down at the old chap from above, Fandor could 
not restrain a laugh. 

“Sweat away!” he grinned, “I’ll give you a dozen of 
champagne if you get the old machine to work . . . God 
in heaven! it is turning.” 

He had not time to say another word before he was 
pitched headlong into the lighter astern, among the rubbish 
that already half filled it and which, luckily for him, made 
a sort of cushion sufficiently yielding to break his fall. 
Nor had he time to get to his feet before the contents of 
the bucket that had previously hung below him, but was 
now suspended above his head as the chain revolved, came 
tumbling all over him. 

“Bad luck again!” was all he said, as he shifted quickly 
a bit to one side, so as not to be fouled again if Moche 
went on working the crank, which had gone on turning 
without further application of external force. But what 
now? the avalanche had stopped; what did that mean? 
Peeping out through the cracks in the ramshackle bulwarks 
of the lighter, Fandor could get an excellent view of what 
old Moche might be at without any risk of being seen 
himself. What he did see was so singular that his face 
lit up with a broad smile. Something was afoot of so 
strange a sort as to force an involuntary exclamation from 
his lips. “The artful dodger!” he ejaculated. What the 
old usurer of the Rue Saint-Fargeau was doing was, in 
fact, extraordinary. He had stopped the crank at the 
exact moment when the first bucket under water rose 
from the depths of the dredger’s hold. At this the old 
man was gazing lovingly, and it was only after he had 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 267 

cast a wary glance round the horizon and made sure there 
was no one watching his proceedings that he began groping 
in it with feverish eagerness. Fandor grinned like a 
Cheshire cat, chuckling to himself as he mentally apostro¬ 
phized the old fellow: 

“Oh, Moche, Moche, what a fool you are!—and just 
when you’re thinking yourself the cleverest rogue unhung! 
What is the fellow after? By the Lord, he’s hauling out 
of the mud an iron box, a cashbox. Full of yellow boys, 
I wager. Egad, there’s enough and to spare there to pay 
the greediest of Fantomas’ regular workers for their trouble! 
Moche, my boy, if I wanted to play you a nasty trick, 
I’d go slap off and tell the gang what I’ve seen, and I 
promise you that, two hours from now, when they’d caught 
you, you’d be having a devilish bad half-hour! Luckily 
for you, I prefer, in Juve’s interests, to find out what you’re 
proposing to do with your treasure. Are you an honest 
agent, is it just a trust confided to you by Fantomas? Or, 
are you by way of robbing your master and all his con¬ 
federates? Oh, ho! it looks as if the villain is preparing 
to answer my question himself.” 

For now, with a meditative air, Moche was pulling at 
his hideous red whiskers, one after the other. Then he 
took out his watch and made several unavailing attempts 
to see the time, for the night was still so dark he had to 
wait for a flash of lightning before he could read the hour, 
while the wind was blowing too violently for him to dream 
of lighting a match. When at last he was able to make 
out the face, a cry of annoyance broke from his lips: 
“Gone three already!”—and without a moment’s delay 
he started off at a run in the direction of Alfort, gripping 
under his left arm the precious box, which he had hastily 
reclosed. 

Where was he off to? Fandor took prompt measures 
to find out, and the other had not gone three hundred 
paces before his steps were being dogged by the pursuing 
journalist. The pace was hot. It was plain that Fantomas’ 
man of business was bent on completing before daylight 
whatever the job it was he had made up his mind to do. But 
to manage it he must make all possible haste, for, as 
Moche had noted, it was by now three o’clock in the 
morning. 


268 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“God Almighty!” Fandor swore, pressing on harder still, 
“what a racer the scoundrel is! ... Where are we? We’re 
clean through Alfort, and there’s nothing else but that 
hovel ahead there; it looks deserted, but it’s that way 
and nowhere else Moche is making across country. Ah, hal 
I think I’m going to know!” 

Moche, in fact, was making straight for a tumble-down 
building that stood empty and abandoned in the middle 
of a wide stretch of waste ground, its shutters hanging from 
their hinges, its walls dropping to pieces, and a general 
look of poverty-stricken dilapidation brooding over all. 
Like a person familiar with the locality and having a 
perfect right to march in without knocking, he pushed 
open the door, a strong and heavy one. Still, the idea 
occurred to him that tramps might have taken refuge in 
the ramshackle hut for shelter from the cold out of doors; 
so he took his revolver in hand, and in he went. 

The old usurer reclosed the door behind him; then 
Fandor, who had been crouching to the ground, advanced 
with a thousand precautions, glued his ear to the door, 
made certain that the outermost room was unoccupied, 
and opening in his turn, made his way silently into the 
lonely house. Neither did he fail to hold his trusty Brown¬ 
ing ready for action. At first he had some difficulty in 
making out just where Moche could be, but soon, noticing 
a feeble, almost imperceptible glimmer of light that filtered 
up through the floor, he realized that the old usurer was in 
a cellar, and had pulled to after him the trap-door by 
which he had gained access. Fandor threw himself flat on 
the trap-door in question and peeped through the cracks 
between the boards. 

But what he saw went far beyond anything he had 
expected. By the light of a lantern he had unhooked from 
the wall Moche, having first deposited his precious money- 
chest on the floor, was busy raising with infinite caution 
one of the paving-stones in the north corner of the cellar. 

“Evidently,” the journalist thought to himself, “he wants 
to re-bury his treasure in a new place!” 

And such was in fact the old reprobate’s intention. In 
the hiding place he had opened up he now proceeded care¬ 
fully to place the chest; then he replaced the flagstone, 
then he scattered sand and dust all round the edges, so 


PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 269 

that it was soon quite impossible to guess that the stone 
had ever been disturbed. 

Meantime Fandor had moved from his spying place; 
Moche was about to take his departure and he must not 
catch sight of the intruder. The journalist’s first idea 
was simply to leave the ruined house before the old ruffian; 
but on second thoughts he realized that such a mode of 
departure was full of risk. 

“Once outside, I shall be on the bare, deserted road, 
and Moche will inevitably see me—and that will never do!” 
But now a happy thought struck the young man—Moche, 
never for one moment suspecting the presence of anyone 
spying on his actions, would probably not trouble to search 
the rooms. All he himself would have to do would be to 
hide, let the old man go out first, then slip away after him 
quietly and in perfect safety. 

A few minutes more and Fandor, concealed behind a 
forgotten pile of firewood, saw Moche emerge again from 
the cellar. The old fellow crossed the outer room, reached 
the door and so away. 

“A pleasant journey to you!” grinned Fandor. 

But the next instant a cold sweat broke out on his brow; 
Moche, after pulling the door to after him, had locked it 
fast. 

It was all the young man could do to keep back an 
oath: “A prisoner! I am a prisoner, by the lord Harry!” 


CHAPTER XXV 


ASSAULT AND BATTERY 

Juve was a free man. The Juge (^Instruction, M. Fuselier, 
who had all along been sceptical as to the generally ac¬ 
cepted theory of the identity of the police-officer with 
Fantomas, but who had been rudely shaken in his faith 
in the detective’s innocence by the startling coincidence of 
the wound found on the prisoner’s arm, had bestirred 
himself with redoubled zeal and had instituted further 
searching investigations. The result had been the dis¬ 
covery that one of the warders at the Sante, Nibet by name, 
was in close touch with the Fantomas’ gang, and having 
access to Juve’s cell, had presumably seized an opportunity 
to drug the prisoner during the night and effect the cut 
on his arm that seemed to supply such convincing evidence 
of his being the same as the assailant of the unfortunate 
inspector of the Criminal Bureau at the Grand Duchess 
Alexandra’s ball. Soon the conjecture became a certainty, 
albeit Nibet had disappeared, alarmed by M. Fuselier’s 
inquiries, and Juve had been released. 

He was now closeted with M. Fuselier in the latter’s 
official room within the Palais de Justice and was receiving 
the friendly magistrate’s cordial congratulations on the 
vindication of his character and his restoration to liberty: 

“Juve, you are free; the fact is established, you are 
not Fantomas; Nibet is proved the culprit in the matter 
of your wound”—and with a spontaneous and charming 
affability the magistrate shook Juve cordially by the hand. 

“But alas!” he proceeded in a less cheerful tone, “we 
do not know when we shall be in a position to announce 
the capture of another and a more terrible culprit.” 

Juve with equal seriousness replied: 

“Poohl I ask you, sir, for a fortnight at the outside! 
It is more than a police matter for me now to arrest 
Fantomas, to unmask him at any rate and force him to 

270 


ASSAULT AND BATTERY 


271 


fly; it is a personal matter. Remember, all the time I 
have been in gaol, I have no doubt my friend, my 
accomplice, Fandor, has been at work; I am going now to 
see him, and between us two . . 

“Or you three,” corrected M. Fuselier, “for indeed you 
must not forget, Juve, that you will have an invaluable 
helper in the person of Tom Bob.” 

But at once the worthy police-officer’s professional pride 
was up in arms; at the mention of Tom Bob Juve’s 
brow contracted and it was in a hard voice that he answered 
roughly: 

“Tom Bob! . . . well, it strikes me, folks make a deal 
of fuss about this Tom Bob, and for my part, Monsieur 
Fuselier, I am far from desirous of working with him . . . 
even . . .” 

Juve stopped short, but the other craved an explanation 
of the broken sentence. 

“Even what?” he demanded. 

“Even,” Juve resumed, “if I do deal with him, it will 
not perhaps be in the way you think, sir!” 

M. Fuselier started violently. 

“Oh! oh!” he cried, “oh, Juvel ... is it possible? 
. . . but no, it cannot be! you are mistaken.” 

Juve gave a dry little laugh: 

“I am not mistaken because I am making no assertion, 
but this much is certain, that Fantomas this time is not 
acting alone. He had accomplices, and accomplices highly 
placed. Upon my word! I confess that Tom Bob . . .” 

But the other sprang up, unwilling to listen to such 
extravagant theories. 

“Come now, Juve,” he remonstrated, “you know the 
man yourself, you know Tom Bob personally. You are 
aware he is a famous detective, are you not?” 

Juve wagged his head as he replied: 

“Yes, I knew a Tom Bob; that Tom Bob I esteemed 
and admired and I do so still, but, sir, I am speaking of 
the Tom Bob who is now in Paris, who is a popular hero, 
the Tom Bob who boasts he will run Fantomas to earth, 
and who—mark this, it is an important point, believe me— 
who nevertheless never took the trouble to ask permission 
to see me at the Sant6, when I was supposed to be Fan¬ 
tomas! There are but two alternatives: either the Tom 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


272 

Bob I speak of is my old friend, in which case it was only 
natural, I take it, he should have come to offer me the 
solace of his sympathy, or he is one of the . . 

Juve stopped short again then, unwilling to say all he 
thought. 

“However, time will show,” he said; “anyway, sir, you 
may be sure that all my energies from now on will be 
devoted to following up my investigations.” 

It was getting late. Since early in the afternoon Juve 
had been discussing with the magistrate the extraordinary 
incidents in which Fantomas’ name once more figured so 
disastrously. 

“Well, it’s too late now to sign your discharge paper, 
and carry out the lengthy formalities required. So I am 
going to give you a provisional form of release and sign 
the formal document to-morrow. Will that suit you?” 

Juve nodded, and was just opening his mouth to answer 
when a knock came at the door, and the magistrate bade 
the applicant come in. 

It was a working mason who presented himself. 

“Give you my excuses,” he said, “but now, sir, can’t 
we come into your room to fix up our scaffoldings?” 

“Yes, yes, my man, just as you please?” 

M. Fuselier got up, hastily arranged his papers, locking 
away some in drawers, anxious not to leave any comprom¬ 
ising document lying about. He grumbled, “It’s just 
killing. Here’s a whole week I’ve never been left in peace 
with these building operations for enlarging the Palais; 
every hour of the day I have workmen fussing around.” 

While the magistrate was speaking, in fact, five or six 
masons had entered the room. One of these made his 
way to the window, in front of which was a hanging scaffold¬ 
ing, where two more workmen were standing. 

“All right, mates?” shouted the mason. 

“All right it is . . . and you?” 

“We’re right, too—come on and see!” 

And then next moment—the words were evidently a 
signal—there followed an abominable scene of violence 
and horror. 

From the scaffolding two more workmen had jumped 
down into M. Fuselier’s room. Before they had time to 
gather their wits together, the magistrate and Juve were 


ASSAULT AND BATTERY 


273 

seized by the fellows, bound, gagged, and thrown roughly 
to the ground. M. Fuselier all but lost consciousness; 
Juve ground his teeth, fighting desperately, dealing blows 
to right and left, a miracle of strength and courage. But 
what could he do against the odds? and he was quickly 
forced to submit. 

“Oh! damn the fellow!” one of the masons swore, “it’s 
a blessing we’ve got him tied! Now, sharp’s the word, 
my lads! The beak on a chair, and tight up! Hold on 
with the tec, eh?” By “the tec,” he meant Juve. Two 
men were kneeling on his chest, another was holding his 
head down on the floor, a fourth was cording his legs. 
Dazed and dumbfounded, Juve could make nothing of it 
all as he watched the bogus masons hurrying to obey the 
orders of the one who seemed to be in command. 

“The beak on the chair, I tell you!” repeated the chief. 
A handkerchief was twisted round M. Fuselier’s head, 
knotted ropes secured his legs, his hands were tied behind 
his back. Then two of the workmen took the unfortunate 
magistrate, one by the shoulders, the other by the legs, 
and carried him to an armchair. There he was seated 
and fixed firmly with ropes. Meantime his mates had 
finished tying up Juve. 

But suddenly the amazing crew who had invaded M. 
Fuselier’s sanctum stopped dead and stood motionless, 
afraid to stir. A knock had sounded at the door. 

“Curse it!” muttered the “Beadle”—the chief of the 
band was in fact, that redoubtable apache—“here’s some¬ 
thing to queer our pitch!” Then, after motioning his 
accomplices to gather in a body at the door, he called out 
“Come in,” in a quiet voice. 

The door opened and the figure of a man appeared on 
the threshold; “M. Fuselier? . . .” he began: but the 
sentence was never finished. At a glance he had seen 
Juve’s body lying bound and inert on the floor, he had even 
caught sight of M. Fuselier, helpless in his chair. Instantly 
doubling his fists, a marvel of coolness and courage, he 
hurled himself into the room and rushed at the “Beadle” 
with a hoarse yell. But behind the door stood massed the 
apaches, waiting; he had not taken two steps when a 
human swarm was clinging round his shoulders, blows fell 
thick and fast, arms and legs were hauled and mauled, 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


274 

he was down, he was choking, he was helpless. Like Juve, 
like Fuselier, in half a minute he was tied and bound, 
unable to move a muscle. 

“Well, my fine fellow! ” the “Beadle” now took up 
his parable, “here’s someone I never expected 1 why the 
devil must he come trespassing on our preserves? You 
know the chap, eh? You know him, Paulet, don’t you?” 

The rest shrugged shoulders contemptuously. 

Paulet, with his crooked smile, swore: “By God! yes, 
there’s no mistaking the beggar, it’s Tom Bob, ain’t it— 
the chap that ran in poor ‘Beauty Boy’?” 

But the older apache had already resumed his gravity: 

“Yes, it’s Tom Bob, the detective! I’m thinking if 
we must ‘finish’,him; but no, by the Lord! not worth the 
trouble, it ain’t.” 

Thereupon the “Beadle” knelt down beside the detec¬ 
tive’s body where it lay and extended on the ground, took 
the unfortunate man by the shoulder and shook him roughly: 

“Hi! detective, d’ye hear me? Yes? good—now look 
and see how we stand, we chaps? You wanted to arrest 
Fantomas, did you? Well, old man, it’s us have laid hands 
on you. And if we don’t finish you off, it’s only to save 
worries here. Only, let me give you a bit of advice— 
by the next boat you’ll have to hook it back to your own 
country. You twig?” 

The man got to his feet again, and, a coward like all of 
his kidney, while Tom Bob lay helpless and incapable of 
offering the smallest resistance, he kicked him in the face 
again and again. Presently, tiring of the exercise, he broke 
off to add: 

“There, I don’t want to spoil your phiz. What’d be 
the good of that? But what to do with the beast? we 
never looked to see him here. Bah! let’s just tie him 
up with the beak, it’ll be company for him!” 

But there was no time to waste. It was a good twenty 
minutes since the brigands had invaded Fuselier’s privacy. 
True, at this time of day there was small likelihood of 
anybody coming to disturb the Juge d’lnstruction; still 
it was best not to delay—a surprise was after all a possi¬ 
bility to be feared; a night watchman, a court official, an 
usher might arrive at any moment. Like a general inspecting 
the dispositions made by his subordinates in command, 


ASSAULT AND BATTERY 


275 

the “Beadle” proceeded to make a rapid examination of 
the fastenings securing Fuselier and Tom Bob. 

“Righto!” he declared, “they’re hard and fast for the 
night, never fear!” 

With a grin, he gripped Tom Bob by the shoulders 
and dragged him into a dark comer of the room; after 
which he seized M. Fuselier and turned him round with 
his face to the wall: 

“They’ll be bored worse than ever if they can’t see one 
another! A pleasant time to you, gentlemen! . . . And 
the other, ready is he? you’ve got tie sack?” 

Yes, the other was ready. The chief might gibe and 
jest and enliven the proceedings with satirical remarks, 
but his men were not wasting their time. While he was 
speaking, they had executed the order previously given. 
The enterprise, not a doubt of it, had been planned before¬ 
hand, and long beforehand. One of the apaches now un¬ 
folded a voluminous receptacle he had brought with him, 
a sort of extra big sack; into this they bundled Juve, still 
bound, still incapable of the slightest movement. Two 
of the ruffians then picked up the sack, and carrying it to 
the window, dumped it on the hanging stage. 

Finally, after turning the key in the lock to make se¬ 
curity doubly secure, the chief addressed his men: 

“Off we go! let’s hook it, mates, all that’s left to do 
is to slip down by the scaffold ropes. Underneath we’ll 
come on the masons’ workshops. There’s a watchman, of 
course, on guard there, but he’s full up at this time of 
night; no fear of his waking up. To get the gentleman 
away, we’ve the motor-car. Ah! by God! but it’s a fine 
bit of work we’ve done this journey!” 

It was three hours or more since the daring ruffians who 
had found a way into the Palais de Justice had tried and 
accomplished their capture of Juve, whom they took for 
Fantomas. M. Fuselier was almost despairing. It was all 
too abominable; just as he was liberating Juve, Juve had 
fallen into the brigands’ power. The man was done for 
for certain—and so keen was the sympathy the magistrate 
felt for the gallant officer, he almost forgot the grotesque 
horror of his own position in fear for Juve’s fate. He 
was the more alarmed, inasmuch as, being reduced to help- 


276 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

lessness, M. Fuselier realized quite clearly it would be long 
ere he was set free, that there was practically no chance 
of his being restored to liberty before the next morning 
at seven or eight o’clock, the hour when the cleaners of 
the Palais would want to come in to put his room to rights, 
and surprised to find the door locked, would make enquiries 
and no doubt find means to enter the room by way of the 
window. 

Nevertheless M. Fuselier was not without some fleeting 
gleams of hope. He had perfectly recognized Tom Bob at 
the moment the American detective sprang into his room 
and had, like himself, fallen a victim to the apaches. He 
could not see him, but now and again he heard him move. 
Tom Bob had not, like him, been tied on a chair, the 
wretches had left him stretched helpless on the carpet. 
Perhaps the detective was going to find a way to free him¬ 
self? Very certainly it was he who was making those 
cracking, creaking noises he could catch at times. It 
seemed he must be dragging himself along the floor to try 
and break his bonds. 

M. Fuselier was not mistaken. Battered and bleeding 
as he was, Tom Bob was giving proof of amazing energy. 
The apaches once gone, he had managed to crawl up to 
the magistrate’s desk, and there, with infinite patience, 
being just able to bend his body, he was employed in 
chafing against the corner of the desk one of the cords that 
held him fast. It needed indomitable perseverance, the 
attempt to free himself in this fashion, but Tom Bob had 
never wanted for energy. Moreover, the task cost him 
agonies, every movement forcing the cords deep into the 
flesh, but he was not the man to be deterred by pain. 

After prolonged efforts, Tom Bob at last succeeded in 
breaking the cord that confined his wrist; after that it 
was child’s play to free himself altogether. In a very few 
minutes he had released his arms, then his legs, had then 
cut off the ropes and snatched out his gag. Barely giving 
himself time to inhale a deep draught of air, he hurried to 
the unfortunate magistrate’s side and untied him; then, 
at the end of his strength, he fell full length on the floor 
at his feet. 

For many minutes, M. Fuselier and Tom Bob, now free, 
dared not risk a movement; half stifled both of them, 


ASSAULT AND BATTERY 


277 

dazed and stupefied, they could only pant for breath. 
M. Fuselier was the first to recover his self-possession. 

“Ah! Bob! Bob!” he groaned, “what a dreadful thing 
has happened to us! ... Juve is surely done for!” 

In a hoarse voice, forcing the words with difficulty from 
his dry throat, Tom Bob protested: 

“Juve! d’you say Juve? But, Monsieur Fuselier, you 
are mad! You don’t understand yet? . . . Juve is just 
Fantomas!” 

“Nonsense, nonsense! if he was Fantomas the brigands 
would never have pinioned him as they did.” 

“Yes, they would, to put you on a false scent.” 

“But it was not worth their while, as he was free— 
I was going to let him go free.” 

“The wretches did not know that.” 

“He would have told them.” 

“Not before us!” 

M. Fuselier shook his head emphatically. 

“No, no,” he asseverated, “I tell you Juve is innocent.” 

“And I,” retorted Tom Bob, no less convinced it seemed, 
“I tell you the gang, thinking Juve, that is to say Fantomas, 
was definitely unmasked, resolved to deliver their Chief. 
They have delivered him and have so delivered him as to 
make you think they were treating him with brutal vio¬ 
lence, merely the better to deceive you . . .” 

M. Fuselier, suddenly recalling the words Juve had 
uttered a few hours before concerning Tom Bob, grew 
thoughtful and gazed at the detective with eyes of sheer 
bewilderment. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 

Hoarse, croaking voices were whispering together: 

“Must get to work, half-past two . . . day’ll be here 
directly . . . hurry up, chaps ... to business!” 

As he heard the ominous words, Juve shuddered, brave 
man as he was. The police-officer in the course of his 
adventurous life had gone through such ups and downs 
of fortune, taken part in such desperate struggles, con¬ 
fronted such dangers, that he was proof against all con¬ 
tingencies; yet he could not help trembling, for he felt a 
clear and definite presentiment that his last hour was on 
the point of striking. The incidents of the evening before 
had astounded him, and despite his imperturbable coolness, 
the detective could not but shudder to recall the terrible 
hours he had lived through since then. In fact, what had 
occurred in M. Fuselier’s room at the Palais and the brutal 
fashion in which Juve had been kidnapped, overpassed all 
limits in the way of fantastic extravagance. Not only had 
the gang of scoundrels taken him unawares, thrown them¬ 
selves upon him, seized and pinioned him, in the very 
Palais de Justice itself, but they had actually carried him 
off by climbing down the scaffoldings running outside the 
windows of the building and got clear away. 

Then Juve, gagged and bound, unable to stir a finger, 
had been pitched into a car which had been driven off at 
full speed without the officer being able to gather the faint¬ 
est inkling of where he was being taken. Still blindfolded 
by a handkerchief tied tight over his eyes, he had been led 
into a house, where he had waited in silence and agonizing 
suspense to know the decision his abductors would come to 
regarding his fate. 

As he recalled these events, his mind turned instinctively 
on what he had seen last, Fuselier attacked and terrorized, 

278 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 


279 

the last sound he had heard, the voice of the American 
detective, Tom Bob, the man he dreaded and suspected. 
Then despair overwhelmed him at the thought of the ever- 
accumulating proofs of the persistent ill-fortune that 
pursued him. 

In truth he was to be pitied! He had been captured 
the very day he had at long last regained his freedom, 
when, cleared of the dreadful accusations that hung over 
his head, he was about to resume the struggle with the 
help and co-operation of that mighty organization, that 
all-powerful combination, formed by the police and the 
Criminal Bureau together. Now, in a moment, as the result 
of an odious plot, a plot no man could well have foreseen, 
he found himself plunged once more into the dark depths 
from which he was just emerging. 

All this was assuredly the work of Fantomas! This 
conclusion Juve had definitely arrived at in the course of 
the terrible night he had just lived through, the last hours 
of which were still slowly dragging out their weary length. 
He had clearly seen that, taking advantage of his own long 
detention in prison, adroitly profiting by the judicial blunder 
to which he owed his incarceration in the Sante, Fantomas 
had duped his confederates and persuaded them that Juve 
was no other than the elusive brigand himself, and that 
it was actually Fantomas who was in gaol. Yes, he under¬ 
stood the whole scheme now, and from information gathered 
here and there, he could guess what was going to happen. 
Fantomas, the real Fantomas, not content with exploiting 
honest people, had exploited the apaches into the bargain— 
and these latter were out to take their revenge. With 
amazing audacity they had carried off Juve, more than 
ever convinced that he was Fantomas. And Juve, now in 
their power, was about to pay the penalty for the grim 
brigand’s perfidy. 

As the night wore on, the noises the detective heard round 
him grew louder and more frequent. Evidently men were 
arriving at a rendez-vous arranged beforehand, and their 
number increased as time went on, while new voices could 
be distinguished demanding the immediate opening of the 
sitting. Presently Juve felt someone was coming up to 
him, and the cords that held him fast were loosened and 
the bandage removed from his eyes. Mechanically the 


28 o 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


prisoner stretched his limbs, cramped by the pressure of 
the ligatures. 

Juve found himself stretched on the floor of a square 
chamber with bare, white-washed walls. By the light of 
a smoky lamp he saw he was surrounded by a score of 
apaches, with grim faces and surly, threatening looks. 
Some of these were unfamiliar to him, others he knew to 
belong to notorious criminals. By the chilly damp that 
exuded from the walls and the flagged floor of the place, 
as well as by the absence of windows, the detective gathered 
that he was confined in the depths of a cellar. 

But his reflections were soon cut short. One of the 
apaches, the same who had untied him, now kicked a 
wooden stool towards him with the order: “Sit there, in 
the middle of us, and listen.” 

Juve suddenly sprang to his feet. With a desperate, 
senseless impulse—for indeed it was useless to dream of 
escape—he pushed away the wooden seat, drove back 
fiercely with his elbows some of those nearest him, and 
darting to the farthest end of the cellar, set his back against 
the wall with clenched fists and furious face, ready to offer 
a vigorous resistance to the first who should come near 
him. 

Alas! this spirited show of defiance had no practical 
result, rather the contrary. Nobody thought of coming 
to grips with the officer. The apaches, seeing him leap 
away had first jeered, thinking it a fine joke that Fantomas 
—for one and all took Juve to be Fantomas—should try 
to give them the slip, now it was impossible. But then, 
by way of precaution, the men nonchalantly produced their 
revolvers, the women borrowed their lovers’ knives and 
fell to polishing the keen blades on a corner of their red 
aprons. 

Juve never flinched, but stood there impassive, waiting, 
though his heart was beating tumultuously. It was 
eventually the police-officer’s old acquaintance, the 
“Beadle,” who, breaking through the circle gathered 
round the prisoner, stepped up to him, mocking and sar¬ 
castic, both hands stuffed insolently in his pockets; the 
apache was bent on heaping his scorn on the man he had 
looked upon as the “master,” now a captive! 

“So there you are, Fantomas,” he grinned, “our chief, 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 


281 

our trusty leader! the chap who sets other folks to fight for 
him and pockets the tin, and never a stiver for his good 
lads!” 

“Bravo! bravo, ‘Beadle’!” 

With a wave of the hand, the apache silenced his com¬ 
rades, signifying he had said nothing of importance yet, 
but he was going to begin 

“My lads,” resumed the speaker, turning to his com¬ 
rades, who stood listening eagerly, again and again inter¬ 
rupting his discourse by cries of enthusiastic approval, 
“yes, my lads, we may well say we’ve brought off a fine 
bit of business!” 

“True for you,” suddenly shouted the “Gasman,” “and 
it’s lucky we had cute chaps with us like the ‘Beadle’ ”— 
and another burst of applause greeted the words. 

All this while Juve had not stirred or opened his lips; 
nerves and attention on the stretch, he had listened, under¬ 
stood, realized the appalling position he had to face. Mean¬ 
while the “Beadle” resumed, emphasizing the facts, that 
were plain enough as they stood. 

“Fantomas,” he apostrophized the prisoner, “you’re a 
cute devil, I don’t dispute that, but we are cuter than 
you, seeing as how we-’ve caught you. Well, I’m going 
straight to the point, I am: here’s how it stands—Fanto¬ 
mas must shell out or croak! so look sharp and make up 
your mind, and tell us where the money is; you’ve got five 
minutes to answer, after that five minutes is up your 
silence will be your death warrant!” 

To occupy his mind, to cheat his despair, Juve began to 
count mechanically, as if in a dream; there were left him, 
he told himself, three hundred seconds to live, after that 
he would face the final plunge, exchange time for eternity. 
Would they kill him at a stroke, or must he endure some 
of those dreadful tortures the apaches invent to satisfy 
their thirst for vengeance? Juve refused to think of it, 
that his courage might not fail him before the end. 

Amid the deafening uproar that raged round him, the 
apaches were discussing, all clamouring at once, the sort 
of death Fantomas deserved. Juve, forcing himself to go 
on counting so as not to hear, continued speaking almost 
out loud: 

“Hundred and twenty-five . . . hundred and twenty-six 


282 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


. , . hundred and twenty-seven . . . and twenty-eight . . . 
twenty-nine . . his voice never shook . . . “hundred and 
thirty . . he stopped dead. A mysterious voice had 
whispered in his ear, “Juve! Juve!” 

The detective did not start; he stood quite still, his 
back against the wall; where did the voice come from? he 
could not tell. All round him crowded the apaches, some 
actually hustling him with their shoulders, others crouching 
about his feet. 

Meantime he felt someone trying to slip in between him 
and the wall, to hide himself behind his back. Inspired 
with fresh courage, he seconded the attempt, taking a 
short step forward towards the middle of the room. 

The voice went on: “Don’t turn round, Juve . . . and 
answer, for the love of God answer, tell them you are going 
to pay!” 

Ah! that voice! and the tone and the words! Juve felt 
a sudden return to life and hope! his heart still beat as if 
it would burst his bosom, but his mind experienced a 
prodigious relief. He guessed it was a friend come to save 
him, and one he could count on even more surely than on 
himself. He had recognized the voice of his old comrade 
Jerome Fandor!—Fandor of whom he had had no tidings 
for six months, of whom he had heard nothing, of whose 
very existence he had no assurance, since the day of their 
unexpected parting. 

How came he to be there—just at the critical moment, 
at the risk no doubt of his own life, clearly with the sole 
intention of rescuing his friend from this most desperate 
of plights? Had Juve been cognizant of late events and 
known of the eight and forty hours Fandor had passed as 
a prisoner in the house at Alfort up to the time when the 
apaches had brought thither his fellow officer, he would not 
have needed to ask himself the question. 

But neither did Fandor deem the moment come for 
explanations. His compelling voice still urged Juve to 
answer. 

“Tell them—T am going to pay’ ”—and Juve obeyed 
his mentor. Cutting short the “Beadle,” who in ferocious 
triumph was counting out aloud the seconds left him to 
live—“Only twenty-five . . . only twenty-four . . . only 
twenty-three,” Juve cried out suddenly, instantly grasping 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 283 

the part he must play, assuming a tone and attitude of 
dignity and high authority: 

“Listen, you fellows; Fantomas is going to pay you!” 

Bravos broke out on every side, and the ruffianly crowd, 
forgetting their rancour, now felt full of sympathy for the 
master who manifested so praiseworthy an intention. But 
next minute, this outburst of satisfaction was succeeded 
by a resumption of sour and suspicious looks. 

“No humbug, eh?” muttered one. 

“We’ve been done once before!” objected another. 

“Fantomas,” declared a third, “you will not leave this 
place before you’ve paid up!”—and to a popular air, the 
whole assemblage began to growl out the refrain: 

“Money . . . money . . . money!” 

But now, high above the hoarse-voiced, monotonous 
chant, there suddenly rang out like a peacock’s scream a 
shrill, screeching voice, demanding: 

“Fantomas, tell us where you have put the stuff?” 

Juve was losing his first fine confidence, and though to 
some extent reassured by the presence of his invisible ally, 
he began to fear he could not keep up the bold front he 
had shown so far. What was he to answer now? 

Fortunately Fandor’s voice again whispered words of 
counsel, and Juve, listening with one ear to what his trusty 
comrade was saying, brought out in broken jerks: 

“The money . . . my lads . . . it’s not far off, it’s 
here . . . here in this very place, under the stone flags 
that pave the cellar floor.” 

The announcement was received with shrugs of incredu¬ 
lous derision and cries of 

“You’re humbugging us!” 

Juve, greatly perplexed, yet obeying implicitly the in¬ 
structions Fandor continued to whisper, went on: 

“Stop your gab, you fools! Am I the master, or am 
I not?” 

The rough, masterful words had their effect; a silence 
followed and Juve little by little entered into the very 
spirit of the part he was enacting literally impromptu. 
For sure, if ever Fantomas had found himself face to face 
with his numerous accomplices, it would have been just 
so he would have talked to them. 

The “Beadle,” rather chagrined to see his prestige 


284 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

diminishing, challenged the individual he took to be 
Fantomas: 

“Show us then where it is, take up the flags yourself! ” 

But Juve stopped him with a gesture full of an impressive 
dignity. 

“Fantomas,” he cried, still prompted by his admirable 
coadjutor Fandor, “Fantomas scorns to work with his own 
hands, it is to you, you dogs, belongs the task of digging 
up the treasure you are going to divide amongst you.” 

“Proud beast!” growled the “Beadle.” 

But less sensitive, the rest of the apaches did not need 
twice telling; they were quite ready to obey the orders 
of the master whose high authority imposed itself upon 
them in spite of everything. “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” 
sprang forward and had soon raised the two first flags— 
to find nothing underneath save sand. But taking advan¬ 
tage of the confused uproar that ensued, Fandor prompted 
again: 

“Tell them to go on, tell them to raise the third stone, 
and you are saved! ” 

The detective gave the order Fandor suggested. The 
two apaches raised the last flag—and started back in sheer 
terror! An atrocious spectacle lay beneath their eyes, 
Juve himself, who had stepped forward to see, stood there 
transfixed with horror. The third stone covered a black 
hole in the ground in which lay a corpse half devoured by 
the worms! The flesh showed the greenish hues of decom¬ 
position and exhaled a poisonous stench. The chest had 
fallen in, a mass of shattered bones and disintegrated, 
putrefying flesh, and from its midst gleamed the white, 
polished handle of a metal money-chest. Where the dead 
man’s heart should have been a strongbox had been de¬ 
posited. It was there the master had concealed the money 
destined for his confederates—a ghastly hiding place, a 
hideous repository! 

Juve, who understood nothing and dared not so much 
as turn around to question Fandor with a look, yet retained 
his coolness. Henceforth an impassive spectator of the 
appalling scene, he stood waiting to become, when his 
friend should give the word, one of the heroes of the new 
scene that was now to be staged. 

Again Fandor prompted, and again Juve gave the order: 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 285 

“Whoever of you is not afraid, let him go take the 
treasure from the depths of the ‘tomb.’ ” 

The apaches gave a roar, but stood hesitating. All were 
bending over the gaping grave. Their eyes glittered with 
covetousness; their grinning faces worked spasmodically 
in mingled repugnance and desire; their hooked fingers 
twitched with eagerness to seize the shining handle of the 
treasure chest, the metal lid of which winked in the waver¬ 
ing light of the smoky lamps that supplied the only illu¬ 
mination in the gloomy cellar. But none dared to move; 
the apaches were afraid—for the first time! 

But now the throng grouped round the hideous hole 
was pushed aside and an old woman, her face scarlet, her 
breath coming in gasps, advanced with arms akimbo to 
the edge of the grave. 

“Why, what,” she croaked, “what’s amiss with you, you 
chaps? to be scared of a dead man, for shame! Well, I’m 
only a woman, I am, but I’m out to show you cowards 
what pluck means. True as I stand here, this hand I hold 
up is going to dive into the fellow’s guts and fetch out his 
gold heart!” 

Her hearers shuddered as she carried out her gruesome 
purpose, remarking with a hideous laugh: “Why should 
I be scared of the good man? we’re old acquaintances, we 
are ... I was the one packed him in down there!” 

Meantime the old harridan had deposited the strongbox 
at the feet of the man she too supposed to be Fantomas. 
Whereupon the apaches quickly found their tongues again 
and all bawling at once, demanded their fees in payment 
of the crimes they had committed. All that remained in 
fact was to open the little chest. The key was in the lock 
and an eager and obliging volunteer in the person of 
“Bull’s-eye” came forward; the lid was raised and a mass 
of gold coins revealed. 

Fandor, more and more well pleased with the turn events 
were taking, had whispered to Juve: 

“Let them share out the swag!” 

But the journalist said no more, assailed by a new 
anxiety, for Juve had taken the game into his own hands 
and was preparing to speak. 

“By the Lord!” thought Fandor, “what is he going to 
say? How risky, pray God he won’t make a hash of it!” 


286 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


Juve had drawn up his tall figure to its full height and 
with a sweep of the arm pushed away the apaches crowding 
round him; with a sudden jerk of the knee he upset “Bull’s- 
eye”—this was his thanks for the man’s zeal in opening 
the chest—reclosed the strong box and planted his foot 
on the lid. 

“Not so fast,” he cried, “hear me first, you chaps! The 
money is there, and it’s good money; you can rest assured 
of that, but first of all, do as I tell you. Everyone shall 
be paid, each according to his deserts; you have worked 
for Fantomas, and Fantomas means to reward you in pro¬ 
portion to what you’ve done! Go on, my lads, and every 
man tot up his accounts: the bravest will come off the 
best. Let’s sit down!” 

A round of applause approved the officer’s announce¬ 
ment. Yes, he was right, those who had done nothing 
much did not deserve much pay, the cute ’uns who had 
worked hard should get the richest prizes. 

Juve marshalled his men in a circle round him, and 
Fandor, reassured as to his comrade’s fate, slipped away 
and mingled unobtrusively with the crowd. A majestic 
figure, with flashing eye and commanding pose, the ex¬ 
detective played to perfection the role of the grim, mys¬ 
terious Fantomas. The man’s coolness was amazing, for did 
he not confront the possible risk that at any moment the 
true owner of that redoubtable name might appear before 
him? He went on: 

“I am listening, out with it all! give in your claims, my 
lads; every man shall have his deserts!” 

But to begin with a protest was voiced by all present. 
Nothing was to be paid away to the absent, the cowards, 
the shirkers, who had not dared to come—and by this they 
meant Moche, Pere Moche, the gang’s confidential agent, 
the man who no doubt had engineered the scheme to entrap 
Fantomas, but who from now on seemed of no more use 
and inspired only feelings of hostility. 

Why yes, Juve saw no objection to sacrificing the old 
reprobate. “Pere Moche,” he cried, “shall get nothing, 
that I swear.” 

Another burst of acclamation; then in the pause that 
followed, seven or eight voices were raised. 

“It was us,” they declared, “kidnapped the Minister, 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 287 

by your order, Fantomas; you remember, it was a devil 
of a job, we had to be mighty smart! . . 

Calmly, impassively, Juve drew a memorandum slip 
from his pocket, “Your names?” he questioned coldly. 

One by one, the apaches filed past the officer, giving 
in their names and their nicknames. 

The “Gasman” made a halt before his superior: “It 
was me,” he said, “set afire the beggars’ refuge, while you 
were getting ’em aboard your car.” 

“Well and good!” pronounced Juve, “ . . . and you?” 
he proceeded, turning now to the “Beadle.” 

“You know yourself, Fantomas, you know what I did.” 

“That goes for nothing; say it over!” 

“What’s the good?” 

But murmurs of discontent broke out; why must the 
“Beadle” give himself these airs? all he’d got to do 
was to state his case like the rest; else he’d get nothing 
at all! 

“Well,” he let out reluctantly, “it was me did the trick 
about the Princess Sonia’s jewels . . 

But “Bull’s-eye” broke in furiously. 

“And what about me, ‘Beadle’?” he growled, “didn’t 
I see you at work—with your hands in your pockets? I 
was in that business, too!” 

Imperturbably Juve noted down on his slip three sig¬ 
nificant memoranda: “Jewels, the ‘Beadle,’ ‘Bull’s-eye.’ ” 

“Next,” he called—and two women, “Big Ernestine” 
and another virago known as the “Panther,” insisted on 
the master’s hearing them. 

“It was us,” they clamoured, “flooded the lake with petro¬ 
leum, so as you could light up the blaze.” 

Juve, however, had a question to put. Would he get 
an answer? he hardly dared expect it. Still he ventured 
to ask: 

“And the big things, eh? the Minister of Justice, who 
killed the Minister of Justice?” 

But at this everyone burst out laughing. 

“Devilish funny,” they grinned; “none of your jokes 
on us, Fantomas! everybody knows it was you.” 

Juve took heedful note of the information; yes, the crime 
should be set down to the account of the real culprit. He 
went on with his questions: 


288 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


“And the bank collector? who did the murder of the 
Rue Saint-Fargeau?” 

A chorus of voices answered him: ‘Moche, it was Pere 
Moche.” 

But one voice protested; someone had sprung lightly 
over the gaping grave and stood before Juve. It was 
Paulet. The young apache with the light eyes and pallid 
complexion growled out: 

“Moche never did anything but make his profit out of 
the crime; he robbed me of the money, as he’s robbed me 
of my wench, to marry her to the rich Englishman; but 
as God’s above me, I swear it was I, Paulet, all on my own, 
who did in the bank messenger!” 

“Bravo!” rose the answering cry; “bravo! it’s you, 
Paulet, for the big prize!” 

But now mother Toulouche, the hag who had hauled out 
the strongbox from the half decomposed corpse, emerged 
from the dark corner where she had been crouching ever 
since. 

“And for me,” she vociferated in her screaming voice, 
“why don’t they question me? ask me what I’m good for? 
Well, I’m going to tell you, whether or no. Hear me, 
Fantomas, and you, mates, too. The man who lies rotting 
there, down there in the fat, damp earth, the man who 
lies rotting there, bone naked, uncoffined, well, that’s my 
work, mine! Fantomas,” she persisted, “it was me did 
the hardest job of all. By Pere Moche’s orders, I sought 
out this man on the open sea aboard the liner La Lorraine. 
I boarded the big ship when the tug brought out her pilot 
to them; slipping on deck when no one was looking, I crept 
down to the fellow’s cabin. I had no weapon, and I was 
only an old woman against a man in the prime of life. 
Well, I was a match for him all the same; I sprang at his 
face, and with my bare teeth I tore out his throat! To 
stop his blood fouling the carpet, I licked it up with my 
tongue. The man fell dead without a cry. Then I sewed 
him up in a big sack, and when we got near port, I pitched 
him into the water. Next night, with Pere Moche to help, 
we fished up the body, poking about with a long pole in 
the mud at bottom of the dock-basin. And for three days 
did I cart the carrion about, till I buried it with my own 
hands under the flags in this cave here! That’s what I did, 


JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS 289 

Fantomas, I, a poor old woman; say, have I the guts, am I 
brave, or am I not?” 

Without the quiver of a muscle, Juve had listened to 
the appalling confession of the hideous virago. 

“This dead man,” he asked in a low, broken voice, “who 
was he?” 

But suddenly there rose an urgent cry of “Hush! hush!” 
The apaches had heard unusual sounds, the tramp of foot¬ 
steps in the distance. By the wan, feeble light that filtered 
in through a grated opening on a level with the ground out¬ 
side, the crowd could see one another’s repulsive faces drawn 
with anxiety. Already half suppressed vows of vengeance 
began to be heard. Fandor was terrified; what was to 
happen next? Was Juve, after escaping the gravest of his 
dangers, finally to fall a victim to Fantomas’ fury? Was it 
he, the real Fantomas, that was coming? 

But Juve with superb audacity, an admirable effrontery, 
commanded: 

“Silence, all of you, and don’t budge! if it is Fantomas 
alone they are after, Fantomas will defend himself alone, 
if it is all of us they are looking for, Fantomas will be at 
your head to defend you and triumph over our enemies; 
hush, do not speak, do not stir!” 

Slowly Juve pushed through the throng and made for 
the door of the cellar. He tried to open it; it was locked 
fast! 

“The key,” he demanded. The “Beadle” advanced 
grumbling: “Here it is,” he said, “what to do now?” 

“Open,” ordered the inspector. 

“You are leaving us, Fantomas?” he was asked. 

“I am keeping guard over you,” replied Juve boldly. 

Then he left the cellar, but did not go away. Between 
him and the apaches now stood the heavy door secured by 
an outside bolt the officer had shot with his own hands. 

Juve stood there listening; a posse of men was sur¬ 
rounding the house. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


juve’s bag 

An hour or so before these events, while it was still night, 
the police-officers on duty at the head Commissariat office 
at Alfort were roused from the peaceful doze they were 
indulging in by the unexpected arrival of an individual 
who seemed breathless and exhausted as if he had been 
running a great distance. 

“The Commissary?” he demanded. 

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. 

“You may be very sure he’s not here.” 

“And his deputy?” 

“He’s away too, of course.” 

“Who is in command here then?” 

The sergeant indicated himself. 

“Well, if you must know, I am; who are you? what do 
you want?” 

Curtly, in measured tones, the man explained: 

“Who am I! I am Tom Bob, American detective, 
specially known of late days at the Prefecture of Police 
and in the city for his war against Fantomas!” 

The sergeant nodded and saluted; he had heard tell of 
Tom Bob and recognized the foreign police-officer from 
the numerous descriptions and portraits he had read and 
seen of him. 

“What can I do to serve you?” he asked. 

Tom Bob told him: “You can arrest Fantomas 1 . . . 
at this moment he is close by with his gang of apaches 
round him; they are all gathered, he and his confederates, 
in a deserted house, at the far end of the military road, 
right hand side after the second cross-roads.” 

“I can see the shanty from here,” announced the ser¬ 
geant, “a wretched hovel it is; but who is it tells us . . ?” 

Tom Bob informed him curtly: 

290 


JUVE’S BAG 


291 

“/ tell you, that is sufficient! . . . how many men have 
you?” 

“Eight.” 

“That’s not enough.” 

The sergeant was getting alarmed: “I can ask for more 
from the Charenton office!” 

“That’s the thing.” 

The sergeant got into communication by telephone with 
his colleague at the neighbouring police post. 

“There are fifteen over yonder,” he informed Tom 

Bob. 

“They must all come,” declared the detective, “Fanto- 
mas’ band counts at least a round dozen ruffians.” 

The detective’s requirements were transmitted from the 
Alfort office, and the fifteen Charenton officers promised to 
be there in a quarter of an hour. The gallant sergeant 
was greatly excited by the coming events; to avoid all 
doubt and make sure he was covered by his superiors, 
he asked: 

“Monsieur Bob, shall you be coming with us?” 

“Undoubtedly!” replied the American detective. But 
the sergeant was not satisfied yet. 

“I have a great mind,” he announced, “to go and inform 
the Commissary, he lives close by.” 

“You should have done that long ago!” Tom Bob said 
rebukingly. 

Then, while the sergeant was issuing his orders, the 
detective sat down in the public office, lit a cigarette, and 
did not vouchsafe another word. 

Before coming thus rudely to disturb the peace and 
quietness of the Alfort Commissariat, Tom Bob had been 
wandering up and down most part of the night in perplexity. 
On quitting the Palais de Justice, leaving Fuselier to make 
the best of his absurd plight, that ambiguous individual 
had realized one fact quite clearly, viz., that the magistrate 
had looked at him in a way that was decidedly disquieting. 
An extraordinary thing for him, Tom Bob’s face had 
blanched somewhat under the magistrate’s questioning look, 
but he quickly recovered his customary coolness. Stepping 
out on to the Boulevard du Palais, quite empty and deserted 
at this late hour, he hailed a passing taxi and offered the 


292 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

driver a handsome tip to drive him as far as the first houses 
of Alfort. 

There the detective quitted his conveyance and plunged 
into the darkness of the silent lanes of the sleeping village. 
He entered a deserted house; and strange to say, a few 
moments later, it was not Tom Bob who reappeared, but 
Pere Moche—Moche with his wig, his spectacles, his big 
nose, as soft and flabby as an indiarubber ball,, and his red 
whiskers. It was Moche who was now making his way 
slowly and deliberately towards the building where two 
days before he had gone to bury the strong box containing 
his money and where, without his knowing it, he had im¬ 
prisoned Fandor when he double locked the door behind 
him on his departure. It was Moche who, hidden near by, 
watched his friends the apaches one after another approach 
the house to which he knew that Juve, mistaken for Fan¬ 
tomas, had been brought. It was Moche who, as time went 
by and he sat watching how matters were going, fell to 
rubbing his hands in self-congratulation. 

“No need,” he thought to himself, “to go myself; I 
should only be risking the same fate as Juve. Now, what 
is happening? ... it is three o’clock in the morning, Juve 
is on his defence at this very moment, they are demanding 
their pay, and he cannot give it them; ... I know my 
fine fellows—in ten minutes my sweet friend, the police- 
inspector, will be put to death, doomed as a Fantomas at 
once traitor and perjurer!” 

Pere Moche rose and set off at a run for the more central 
parts of the city. Suddenly he snatched away his wig and 
spectacles, pulled off his false nose and red whiskers—and, 
extraordinary to relate, instead of the old usurer’s ill-omened 
face appeared the keen, refined countenance of the Amer¬ 
ican Tom Bob. In a ringing voice the latter cried in de¬ 
fiance of men and gods: 

“Good-bye, old Moche, good-bye, Tom Bob, I thank 
you both for lending me your fascinating personalities and 
enabling me thus to triumph over my opponents. Fanto¬ 
mas, my boy, you’ve worked to some purpose!” 

Could anyone have overheard this extraordinary solilo¬ 
quy, he would assuredly have been struck with sheer amaze¬ 
ment, for if at a pinch sundry persons had come to suppose 
that Pere Moche bore so close an affinity with Fantomas 


JUVE’S BAG 


2 93 

that possibly he was Fantomas himself, none could ever 
think that the detective, who had come to France under 
official sanction with the express object of hunting down the 
brigand, was in fact none other than that same notorious, 
ever evasive criminal, now better assured than ever against 
capture, seeing he was actually giving chase to himself. 

Fantomas stood, a solitary figure in the far-stretching 
plain, thinking. 

“I cannot rest satisfied,” he muttered, “till I see Juve 
lying dead—as dead as a man can be! I must also,” he 
went on, “for a few hours more keep up my role of Tom 
Bob; I shall score yet another success if by one triumphant 
cast of the net I contrive that the French police shall arrest 
the whole gang of my confederates ... I should say 
Fantomas’ confederates! ” 

Then it was that, calculating his time almost to a minute, 
the atrocious scoundrel had given the alarm at the Alfort 
police-post. 

Dawn was breaking fast. The officers from Charenton 
had joined the Alfort contingent and the united force was 
hurrying, Tom Bob and the Commissary at their head, 
towards the extremity of the military road where the 
mysterious house stood. The sergeant was issuing his 
instructions. 

“You will surround the building,” he ordered his men; 
“you will draw in the circle more and more, but taking 
cover to avoid accidents; have your revolvers out, the 
brigands lurking there are terrible fellows; at the first 
suspicious movement, fire without a moment’s hesitation.” 

Meantime Tom Bob, quite unruffled, was explaining to 
the Commissary: 

“You know what happened yesterday—Fantomas re¬ 
leased from prison, carried off by the apaches, tried by 
the villains, doomed and perhaps executed? . . .” 

But Tom Bob broke off short with a cry of terror. On 
the threshold of the ill-omened house, at the opening of 
the stairs giving entrance to the cellar, stood a man motion¬ 
less, with folded arms. 

“Fantomas!” exclaimed Tom Bob. But the Commissary 
set him right at once. 

“No, no! it is Juve,” he cried, “Juve! Yes, we heard 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


294 

aright; the papers that gave the news yesterday spoke 
the truth, Juve is innocent and a free man”—and the 
Commissary sprang forward towards the Inspector of the 
Criminal Bureau. 

“Juve, Juve,” he questioned, “what are you doing here? 
What are you waiting for?” 

The officer replied deliberately, in a quiet voice, perfectly 
calm and collected; 

“Why, my dear Commissary, it was you I was waiting 
for!” 

“The brigands,” went on the official excitedly, “Fanto- 
mas’ accomplices—where are they?” 

Juve pointed a finger at the door against which he leant. 

“They are there,” he said, “inside there; it only remains 
for us to have them out one by one; how many men have 
you with you?” 

“Twenty-three,” the Commissary informed him. 

After thinking a moment, “Yes, that is sufficient,” Juve 
declared, “we can get to work.” 

The Commissary, a worthy fellow, once a subordinate 
under the friendly Inspector at the Criminal Bureau, could 
not refrain, despite the critical conditions of the moment, 
from expressing his delight. 

“Juve, my dear Juve,” he cried, “what a blessed thing! 
Your innocence is acknowledged at last; I am so glad, so 
very glad! . . .” 

But the good man never finished his congratulations. 
For some minutes ominous sounds had been heard coming 
from the cellar, and now a fearful yell broke out and a 
hailstorm of bullets, fired at point blank range from inside, 
pitted and pierced the door, fortunately a thick, heavy 
one. Nevertheless Juve was struck by two or three pro¬ 
jectiles, spent balls luckily, otherwise the inspector would 
have been shot dead. He stepped back a pace or two. 

“That spoils our game!” he muttered simply, “I suppose 
our fine fellows have found out at last that the Fantomas 
they held prisoner was no other than Juve, the police- 
officer!” 

“Sir,” demanded the Commissary, consulting the 
Inspector with enhanced respect in face of the new danger, 
“how must we proceed now?” 

Juve cast a rapid glance round the house. “We must 


JUVE’S BAG 


295 

parley with them to begin with,” he dedared—and in a, 
voice he made big and authoritative, he challenged the 
apaches. 

“You are taken!” he announced in peremptory tones, 
“surrender!” 

The shouts redoubled, mingled with oaths of the most 
appalling profanity. The Commissary, all for making a 
quick end, suggested: 

“For my part, I should make no bones about shooting 
them all down through the grated windows, if five minutes 
from now they haven’t given in their submission. 

But Juve was biting his lip, a prey to excruciating 
anxiety. At all costs firing must be avoided, the ruffians 
induced to surrender and a fight prevented; doubtless 
Juve did not care a straw for the lives of the monsters who 
had come so near killing him, but he knew that among 
them was one, the least hair of whose head was sacred to 
him! But would the apaches give in, or must they be 
mastered by force or famine? Either solution was equally 
repugnant to Juve, always swayed by the same motive. 

Meanwhile a crowd of the honest, hard-working inhabi¬ 
tants of Alfort, risen early as is their wont, had gathered 
round, naturally all agog with curiosity to see this quite 
unusual display of police activity round the old building 
that had always borne something of an evil reputation. 
The police, on being questioned, had not hesitated to say 
it was a matter of a gang of dangerous apaches they had 
just brought to bay. The louder the clamour of oaths 
and threats that rose from the cellar, the more excited and 
angry and impatient grew the crowd. 

“Smoke ’em out!” rose the cry, and fists were shaken 
fiercely at the wild beasts’ lair, as they remembered how 
in all the honest, hard-working population of Alfort there 
was hardly a soul but had suffered from the depredations 
and atrocities of the ill-omened gang, or at any rate, of 
similar gangs of marauders . . . They had them at their 
mercy, why not make an end? Already, in spite of the 
constables’ efforts to keep order, the crowd was kindling 
round the walls dry vine shoots and wisps of straw: through 
the low grated window someone threw in a lighted brand. 

Juve began to tremble, and once more addressed the 
apaches: 


296 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

“Come now, don’t go trying to be too clever; surrender, 
I tell you!” 

Then the “Beadle” spoke out in the name of all. In 
a quavering voice, a coward in face of the instant danger, 
the fellow whined: 

“We’re going to give in, Juve; only protect us from the 
crowd, those dogs might easy tear us to pieces.” 

Juve made no show of insolent triumph. At a nod from 
him to the Commissary, a double line of officers, revolvers 
in hand, formed up either side of the entrance, while four 
men stood ready in the doorway to clap on the bracelets 
as the ruffians came out. A minute or two earlier the 
Commissary had caught sight of an army forage-wagon 
going by, and had requisitioned it to serve as an impromptu 
“Black Maria” for the conveyance of the sinister crew 
Juve had so opportunely arrested. 

Juve held the heavy door of the cellar ajar. “One by 
one!” he ordered—and the apaches obeyed. “Bull’s- 
eye” was the first to present himself, wearing a hang-dog 
look and offering his wrists docilely for the handcuffs to 
be adjusted; behind him appeared “Big Ernestine,” with 
hard-featured face and rouged cheeks, casting black looks 
of furious defiance at the crowd that jeered at the street 
walker and her tattered finery; next came the “Gasman’s” 
turn, a tall skeleton with enormous hands; then the 
“Beadle,” shivering with fear; Paulet, paler than ever, 
his features drawn and distorted almost beyond recognition 
in sheer terror of the scaffold; then Mere Toulouche, alone 
and utterly callous, who the moment she was outside, began 
to harangue Juve, the police-officers, the Commissary, 
chuckling and grinning in hideous mockery. 

All submitted to the same fate with a remarkable docility. 
But when the officers prepared to deal with the last of 
the unfortunates issuing from the cellar in this ignominious 
fashion and were going to slip on the bracelets, Juve threw 
himself impetuously before them. 

“No, oh no!” he cried, “not that one, you shall not 
pinion him! leave him to me, I will see to him; for, look 
you, this is the man who saved my life, Fandor!”—and. 
to the amazement of all, Juve and Fandor fell into one 
another’s arms in a long-drawn embrace. 

For Tom Bob, he had vanished long before this! 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE DECOY 

It was broad daylight by this time and the morning, still 
a trifle chilly, gave promise of a very fine day. The tragic 
scenes just enacted had had, thanks to the radiant beams 
of the rising sun, an almost cheerful setting. As the forage- 
wagon, now transformed into a “Black Maria,” was driving 
off, loaded up with the sinister crew so opportunely captured 
by Juve, the latter rubbed his hands, a customary mark 
of inward satisfaction with that officer. 

“Good work Fandor!” he said—“and none too soon, 
neither! I was beginning to despair.” 

Fandor wagged his head sententiously. 

“We should never despair, Juve; but all the same, like 
you, I confess this morning has held some surprise for us. 
I was just eating my heart out down in that cellar; I 
thought one time neither you nor I would ever see the 
light of day again! . . .” 

But Juve was lost in a brown study. With head cast 
down and hands clasped behind his back, he paced a few 
steps in the direction taken by the army vehicle carrying 
the gang of apaches. 

“We are going to the police-station?” Fandor asked. 

“To the station? no! We have something better to 
do.” 

Fandor stood with folded arms, fixing a look of inter¬ 
rogation on his companion’s face. 

“You are leaving all those fellows in the lurch?” he 
inquired. 

“I am not leaving them in the lurch, Fandor! We shall 
catch up with them again before long; now at once, if 
need be. Only we have more pressing business. Never 
forget, my boy, that all those fellows are really and truly 
only supers. What we want now is to come upon the 
leading actor.” 


297 


298 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

Fandor smiled: “The leader, Fantomas, eh? But I 
take it, Juve, that now, like me, you are no longer in 
ignorance who it is? Moche strikes me . . .” 

Juve laughed too, a hearty laugh of triumph. After the 
terrible hours the gallant inspector had spent in his prison, 
after the depressing times he had known when everybody 
accused him of being Fantomas, he was at last nearing the 
final victory, the rehabilitation of his character, the arrest 
of the real culprits! It was in fact barely a few hours since 
M. Fuselier and his colleagues had recognized the fact that 
he was really Juve, and yet with marvellous skill and cool¬ 
ness, owing more to his own amazing boldness than to cir¬ 
cumstances, he had succeeded in wresting the mask from a 
gang of the most dangerous criminals, accomplices of the 
ever-elusive arch-criminal himself; nay more, he had pushed 
his investigations so far that the actual identity of Fanto¬ 
mas hardly admitted of further doubt for him, that he could 
feel confident the arrest of the Lord of Terror was now only 
a question of hours. 

Taking Fandor by the shoulder, Juve spoke softly: 

“Egad! yes, I know who Fantomas is! I even know 
twice over who he is!” 

“Twice over? Juve, what do you mean?” 

“You don’t understand me, Fandor? Come now, you 
accuse Moche, don’t you? You do this, by reason of the 
part he played with these apaches? and you are in the 
right. But there’s more to follow. Fpr Fantomas to be 
Moche was not enough; that travesty held good only for 
his confederates. Fantomas, to dupe all Paris as he did, 
believe me, was someone else into the bargain, someone 
I suspect, astounding as the thing may sound. And it is 
of this suspicion, Fandor, we must now establish strict, 
undoubted, undisputable proof.” 

Dumb with amazement at the cool confidence of the 
man, Fandor demanded in a stammering voice: 

“Whom do you suspect then, Juve? have you a scheme 
of investigation?” 

Juve nodded his head gravely. 

“I have more,” he declared: “I have a fear.” 

“What do you fear?” 

“Have you forgotten the corpse you showed me just 
now?” 


THE DECOY 


299 


Fandor started back in sudden agitation. 

“What!” he gasped, “if I am to believe you, you already 
think you know ...” 

“The name of the dead man? Yes, by my faith! I do. 
Come with me.” 

The two men re-entered the ill-omened ruin where they 
had spent such tragic, such hopeless hours of agony. It 
was not without a shudder Juve gazed round the damp, 
confined cellar where, but for Fandor’s quite unlooked for 
intervention, he would inevitably have met an appalling 
death. 

“Fandor!” began his friend, “it is a hideous job we 
have to do. It is the grave there must give us up its secret. 
The unhappy man who lies in it, Fantomas’ unsuspected 
victim, must rise up to accuse his murderer!” 

The journalist was livid. A gruesome task indeed, this 
work of justice Juve proposed to undertake! For one who 
had so lately borne such torments of fear and suspense, it 
called for nerves of steel, an extraordinary strength of 
will, to confront afresh the dismal horrors of the eAuma- 
tion he was bent on. The intrepid officer stepped up to 
the grim hiding-place, which a few hours before the hideous 
hag, Mere Toulouche, had not feared to ransack in search 
of gold—gold Fantomas had buried there, and of which 
she claimed her share, boasting she had a better right to 
it than anyone. 

Then, in the gloom of the cellar, Juve and Fandor bent 
over the gaping hole. A blast of pestilential gases struck 
them full in the face, the ignoble horror of what they saw 
forced them to recoil. Instinctively the two took hands, 
panic-stricken, yet resolved to prove their courage,, to 
manifest at all costs that they had the right, the duty to 
break once again the repose of the dead man, who lay there 
in his unhallowed grave. The spectacle was appalling. 
The fleshless face, in which the eye orbits were two hideous 
holes, and the hanging jaw mimicked a dreadful grin, 
seemed to stare up at them with sightless orbs. 

Bending low, Juve and Fandor, speechless, motionless, 
shuddering, anxiously scrutinized the unrecognizable fea¬ 
tures. Who was the unknown, this victim of Fantomas’ 
villainy? After what grim drama had the corpse been laid 
in this secret grave, where once again his rest was to be 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


3 00 

disturbed, where Fantomas had not feared to deposit his 
treasure for safe keeping. 

“The dead man is unrecognizable,” pronounced Fandor, 
“it is impossible to know who and what he was. Bertillon 
perhaps, by his scientific methods, might discover. . . 

But Juve interrupted the journalist with a rapid gesture, 
his agitation waxing greater every moment. While the 
other was speaking, he had leant still closer over the grave 
and was examining the body with yet keener attention. 

“Bertillon, say you? Fandor, we have no need of him 
and his system. I can guess the dead man’s name! This 
is what I hoped—the dead man speaks, Fandor, the dead 
man denounces the impostor. The corpse we have before 
our eyes—why hesitate to say it, our conclusion will be 
confirmed by the Toulouche woman when we question 
her—is Tom Bob’s, the unfortunate American detective 
Fantomas had them murder directly he knew of his arrival 
in France—yes, Tom Bob’s, the real Tom Bob; for the 
Tom Bob everybody has known for months, the Tom Bob 
who was afraid to meet me, the Tom Bob who was seen 
at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s, the Tom Bob who only 
yesterday made pretence of struggling with the men who 
kidnapped me, you surely know his true name by now?” 

Fandor, stunned by his friend’s assertions, durst hardly 
articulate the name of terror, “Fantomas!” Indeed the 
journalist had good right to be terrified—and overjoyed 
too! If Juve was correct, if he was not deceiving himself, 
the triumph they were winning over Fantomas was even 
more complete, more brilliant than they had ever hoped for. 

But the journalist was not convinced. Too man} 7 im¬ 
probabilities seemed to him to forbid Tom Bob’s being 
Fantomas, too many impossibilities rose in his memory to 
suffer him, unprotesting, to listen to Juve’s assertions. 

“I tell you, Juve,” he brought out at last, “I cannot 
believe you; Tom Bob can not be Fantomas, the thing is 
impossible!” 

But Juve remained unmoved by the other’s scepticism. 
“And why not, pray?” he asked. 

“Remember the messages despatched from the Lor¬ 
raine. . . .” 

“Yes, Fandor, the messages despatched by the real 
Tom Bob—the real Tom Bob whom nobody recognized in 


THE DECOY 


301 

the train, because he had been replaced by the sham—the 
sham Tom Bob, who, being in fact Moche, knew the 
‘Beauty Boy’ would be there, marked down his man and 
had the police arrest the apache—all the time a hundred 
miles away from recognizing his denouncer.” 

“But then, remember the attempted assassination at the 
Hotel Terminus; Tom Bob, the man you accuse, might 
well, like me, have lost his life there . . . so. . . .” 

Juve smiled. “Silly boy!” he laughed, “why, don’t you 
understand that this attempt, so miraculously frustrated, 
had all been planned by Tom Bob himself? My precious 
innocent, why, that was just the very best way of avoiding 
any chance of his being suspected. Look you, I wager, 
if we inquire, we shall find the occupant who preceded Tom 
was Moche—that is to say himself!” 

But again Fandor objected: “I grant your explanation 
on this point; but here’s another thing—if Tom Bob is 
Fantomas, why did he have the body of the bank messenger 
he had murdered brought to light?” 

“Why, for the same reason, to impress people with his 
cleverness, my dear sir. . . . But what are you laughing 
for?” 

“Because,” returned the journalist, “I’ve kept my best 
argument for the last. Remember Fantomas telephoned, 
before witnesses, to Tom Bob. . . .” 

But Juve knew better than to attach much weight to this 
last objection of Fandor’s. The latter was very evidently 
convinced, if he could find no stronger argument than this 
to bring against his friend’s theory. 

“And do you remember this, my friend—how, a few days 
ago, they found in a garret at the Hotel Terminus a phono¬ 
graph, the roll missing, hitched on to the telephone wires. 
After that, what else can you think of to say? or do you 
admit that Tom Bob is Fantomas?” 

Fandor nodded, vastly impressed. 

“I admit this, Juve, that you are now and always the 
king of detectives; and yet, there is a doubt still lingers 
in my mind”—and pointing to the corpse; “Look here,” 
he persisted, “you say this is truly and indeed Tom Bob’s 
body—how do you know that?” 

“By the finger”—and he drew Fandor’s attention to 
the dead hand. One of the bones of the forefinger piercing 


3 02 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


through the discoloured flesh hung down, with an uncanny, 
almost threatening gesture. The bone of the finger was 
slightly crushed and crooked. 

“Mark that,” said Juve. “In old days, once when I 
was working with Tom Bob, without knowing him at all 
well indeed, in the course of an investigation we were 
pursuing amongst certain anarchist associations, this un¬ 
lucky Tom Bob came very near being killed by a bomb. 
Fortunately the explosion was not so violent as the assas¬ 
sins had expected. Still Tom Bob was severely hurt; his 
right hand was hit, and this finger damaged. The injury 
is therefore an unmistakable pointer, a bit of evidence that 
cannot be challenged. Egad! sir, it will be easy enough for 
us to cable to the American Criminal Department and get 
the precise details from the descriptive ticket certifying 
Tom Bob's identity. It is only a question of hours; by 
this evening the dead man will have definitely avowed his 
name; by this evening, I tell you, we can be sure of having 
discovered the unfortunate Tom Bob, the real Tom 
Bob.” 

Fandor was already on his feet. Less inured than Juve 
to the sight of death, he felt an instinctive longing to get 
back to the light of day, to be gone from this noisome cellar 
that had been turned into a sepulchre. 

“And now, Juve,” he asked, “now, by your showing, 
what is best to do?” 

Juve had likewise risen. Casting a last look at the corpse: 

“Sleep in peace,” he murmured, “sleep in peace, you shall 
be avenged!” 

Then, turning to Fandor: “Now?” cried Juve in his 
clear, ringing voice, “now? Now, it is only left us for one 
time more to risk our lives! We must make all speed—you 
can guess to whose house, I imagine? and with what 
object? . . . My lad, the hour is come at last when Fan¬ 
tomas is to settle up accounts with us!” 

Fandor involuntarily turned pale. Oh! that decisive 
moment Juve announced, with what anxiety he had been 
waiting for it all these long months! that moment they 
were now to know! What a joyful triumph they would 
both enjoy to grip Fantomas by the collar, the ever elusive 
Fantomas! The journalist could hardly credit the reality; 
he asked: 


THE DECOY 


303 

“Juve! Juve! then we are going to arrest him, him 
the never-to-be-captured ?” 

Juve shrugged his shoulders, smiling, almost unmoved. 

“Yes,” he replied, “we are going to arrest Fantomasl 
But can you guess, Fandor, where we are going to arrest 
him?” 

“Not I!” 

“For sure, you are losing your wits! Come, think! 
Tom Bob, at this present moment, must know we are hot 
on the scent and be thinking of disappearing. Now, is he 
the man simply to disappear without reaping the profits of 
his crimes?” 

“Why, no!” 

“Then, my dear man, all we have to do is to go to the 
grand duchess’s, to Lady Beltham’s, to seek the organizer 
of the famous subscription. It is heavy odds, don’t you 
see? that Tom Bob, before disappearing, will want to get 
hold of the moneys collected for his benefit. The strong¬ 
box where they are locked up, that is the decoy, the bait, 
that is bound to attract him powerfully; it is beside it we 
must take him in our toils.” 

“Or shoot him down like a noxious wild beast,” con¬ 
cluded Fandor, brandishing his Browning. 

M. Landais, Minister of Justice, was that morning at 
nine o’clock clad in a very summary costume. Wearing a 
long dressing-gown, gaping open over his chest, his naked 
feet thrust into a pair of slippers, unshaven, and only half 
awake, he was seated on his desk in his official rooms in 
the Rue Franklin; he held his telephone receiver in one 
hand, he was driving his secretaries frantic with a hundred 
contradictory orders, while at the same time worrying the 
unfortunate girl on duty at the Exchange out of her life. 

“Hello!” called the Minister, “I’m asking you to put 
me through to the Prefecture. The Prefecture of Police? 
Yes! that’s plain enough, surely; can’t you understand?” 

Then he dropped the receiver, and swearing out loud a 
terrific oath, he yelled, as if to somebody behind the scenes: 

“But, hell and damnation! the thing’s outrageous! 
Havard has not been told about it! Else he’d be here!” 

“You must remember, sir,” observed a valet, who at 
M. Landais’ summons had cautiously half opened the door, 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


304 

“it is barely a quarter of an hour since they went for him. 
If M. Havard was still in bed. . . .” 

“Well, he had only to get up, eh? I’ve got up, haven’t 
I? . . ” 

But the Minister stopped abruptly; he had just got 
connection with the Prefecture of Police: 

“Hello!” he called, “well, what news? . . . What? . . . 
What’s that you tell me? Juve is dead? Good Lord! you 
are simply mad! . . . You don’t know? They never do 
know anything at the Prefecture! We must make a change 
there!” 

Trembling with agitation, he hung up the receiver 
again and, all alone in the room, began a perplexed 
soliloquy: 

“Juve is dead! Juve is dead! That isn’t true, for I was 
awakened by a message informing me that he was tied up 
at the Palais de Justice, along with M. Fuselier! But in 
that case. . . .” 

Suddenly he stopped to listen; there was a knock at the 
door of his room. 

“What now?” he yelled, “what is it? . . . Come in, come 
in!” 

The same valet who had just before answered M. Landais’ 
summons, again put in his head. 

“It is a cyclist constable who would like. . . 

“Tell him to come in, for God’s sake!” 

The manservant vanished, far from anxious to enjoy a 
prolonged tete-a-tete with his master, who was in the vilest 
of tempers. A second or two more and a police-officer 
entered the Minister’s working room. He had no time to 
stare in astonishment at the great man’s unconventional 
attire; the Minister was down on him instantly: 

“Why, what is it now? Where d’you come from?” 

The officer saluted respectfully. 

“Sir,” he was beginning, “I’ve come from the Commis¬ 
sary’s office at Alfort. . . .” 

“From Alfort? Alfort, what the devil’s up at Alfort? 
What do you want?” 

“Sir” the man persisted, “they have just captured a 
dozen brigands ... a dozen accomplices of Fantomas.” 

“Who has captured them?” 

“Inspector Juve, sir.” 


THE DECOY 


305 

The Minister stood hesitating a moment. “Juve?” he said 
at last. “But that’s impossible; Juve is dead!” 

Losing all sense of the respect due to a superior, the 
officer, overwhelmed by the news, asked excitedly: 

“Juve dead? is Juve dead?” 

But, paying no heed to the worthy policeman’s emotion, 
the Minister proceeded: 

“Or he is tied up in the Palais de Justice, since yester¬ 
day evening. ...” 

“Tied up in the Palais de Justice? . . . since yesterday 
evening?” stammered the officer, opening eyes of sheer 
amazement. 

M. Landais completed the man’s mystification. 

“Certainly!” he affirmed. “He is tied up, because he is 
set at liberty! You can make nothing of it, my man? 
No more can I! . . . And that’s about enough! Clear 
out!” 

The officer swung round on his heels as if to leave the 
room; then, dead set on delivering his message, he re¬ 
peated : 

“Well, sir! Juve may be dead, or he may be tied up, 
or he may be at large; anyway this much is certain, he 
has just arrested twelve apaches!” 

And so saying, while M. Landais sprang to his instru¬ 
ment and began to ring up the Exchange again with 
frantic energy, the officer took himself off. Hardly was 
the door closed behind him before the manservant half 
opened it again cautiously: 

“Monsieur le Ministre!” 

“Go away! I’m telephoning. . . . Hello! Hello! put 
me through to the Palais de Justice.” 

“Monsieur le Ministre!” repeated the servant. 

“What is it, in God’s name!” 

“It’s a lady crying in the anteroom; she says she must 
speak to you?” 

M. Landais looked up: “A lady? what’s her name?” 

“I did not qute catch her name, sir, but it’s a princess, 
sir, it seems—the Princess Sonia. . . 

“Sonia Danidoff? . . . What does she want now? Show 
her in.” 

But at that same moment the room door burst open 
with startling violence. It was Sonia Danidoff, who, beside 


306 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

herself with excitement, had forced her way, despite the 
secretaries’ objurgations, into the Minister’s private room. 
The unhappy woman was holding to her forehead a hand¬ 
kerchief, the muslin and lace of which were dyed red. 

“Monsieur le Ministre!” cried Sonia, in a voice choked 
by emotion, “they wouldn’t hear me at the Prefecture! 
Nobody would listen to a word! Make them do me justice. 
Look, I have just been the victim of a dreadful assault! 
The Grand Duchess Alexandra has disfigured me!” 

Sonia Danidoff was exaggerating. With a tragic gesture 
she took the handkerchief from her forehead. On the pearly 
surface of the temple a cut was bleeding. 

“Madam,” said the Minister, who knew Sonia Danidoff 
very well, “it is the Commissariat you must apply at!” 

“No, Monsieur le Ministre! They would not understand 
at the police office the importance of my wound. If I 
have come to you, it is to denounce an abominable piece 
of swindling! The Grand Duchess Alexandra, the organ¬ 
izer of the subscription for Fantomas’ benefit, is Tom 
Bob’s mistress! And it was on account of jealousy, because 
Tom Bob is my lover, that she flew at me.” 

For once the Minister quite forgot the courtesy due to a 
lady. 

“The Grand Duchess Alexandra is Tom Bob’s mistress?” 
he cried. “Why, what fresh complication have we here? 
And what do you want me to do?” 

The door opened yet again, and M. Landais’ private 
secretary came in, a very fashionable young man, very 
elegantly dressed and immaculately turned out. 

“Sir,” he informed the Minister quietly, “here is a fresh 
communication come from the Palais.” 

“What do they say?” 

“It was not Juve, it was Tom Bob, who was tied up 
last night with M. Fuselier.” 

But Sonia Danidoff, hearing this, broke in, protesting: 

“Tom Bob tied up? What next! I have this moment 
run away from him; he was at the Grand Duchess Alex¬ 
andra’s! he is there now!” 

“Tom Bob is at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s?” 

M. Landais sprang to his feet once more; he clapped 
both hands to his head and vociferated in tones of des¬ 
peration: 


THE DECOY 


307 

“Oh! I am going mad! I am going mad! They are all 
dead! they are all tied up! they are all free and at large! 
and there are twelve apaches arrested and the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra is Tom Bob’s mistress. Don’t, don’t! 
it is too much! let me be, give me a moment’s peace!” 

Once more the door opened. Calm, cool, collected, M. 
Havard entered the room. 

“You sent for me, sir?” he asked. “Whatever is going 
on? I can’t see one of your secretaries, the doors stand 
open for anyone to walk into your working room. Your 
trusty servant even refuses to show me in, simply telling 
me to march straight into your private room! Is it a revo¬ 
lution?” 

M. Landais cut short M. Havard’s exclamations: 

“A revolution? I can’t say! It’s just a story for a 
madhouse—the Grand Duchess Alexandra is a swindler! 
Juve is dead! Juve has arrested a dozen apaches! Tom 
Bob is tied up at the Palais! Tom Bob is running away! 
he’s free and at large: he’s at the grand duchess’s! I tell 
you I’ve lost count of everything. I don’t understand one 
word of it all!” 

But seeing M. Havard’s amazed look as he listened to 
the Minister’s wild words, the latter realized he would do 
well to cultivate a little more calm of manner. 

“Listen, Havard,” he said, “I have really lost touch with 
things. Since waking this morning I have received twenty 
contradictory reports. It will be another dreadful panic in 
town unless we can clear all this up”—and the Minister 
told M. Havard the story of his morning as intelligibly as 
he found possible. All the time he was speaking, the Head 
of the Criminal Bureau listened quietly, nodding his head 
at intervals in silent assent. Where the Minister was all 
at sea, he, M. Havard, accustomed to matters of police, 
could make a shrewd guess at the truth, and it was in an 
unruffled voice that the police official finally proposed: 

“If you think well, sir, I am going straight away to Lady 
Beltham’s?” 

“To Lady Beltham’s?” 

“Well, the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s, if you like it 
better.” 

“But what for?” 

“To beg her—and Tom Bob, who is with her, by what 


308 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

the Princess Sonia stated—to come and make their deposi¬ 
tion before you, and before Juve, who, I am persuaded, will 
not be long now in letting us hear of him.” 

For the Minister M. Havard’s words were incomprehen¬ 
sible. Still he was too well assured of the ability invariably 
displayed by the Head of the Criminal Department not to 
agree to his plan. 

a Go by all means, Monsieur Havard; but tell me, is it 
an arrest you are going to attempt?” 

“No, Monsieur le Ministre, it is an invitation I am going 
to proffer, but I shall be accompanied by a dozen constables 
when I make it.” 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE “EVER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN 

The Grand Duchess Alexandra gave vent to an exclama¬ 
tion expressive both of surprise and triumph, as she greeted 
the visitor who stood before her. The latter, dropping his 
eyes and assuming a humble, almost abject mien, the 
bearing of a repentant sinner, murmured: 

“I am happy, madam, to return your greeting.” 

The grand duchess seemed sceptical; with panting breath, 
for she was greatly agitated, she questioned: 

“Tell me, sir! tell me, Tom Bob, what fresh crisis, what 
pressing necessity obliges you to come to me like this?” 

Tom Bob, for he it was, hesitated a moment before 
replying. Slowly he lifted his glance and fixed it on the 
grand duchess’s face. The lovely creature and the wily 
detective looked long into each other’s eyes. 

The grand duchess? . . . Tom Bob? In truth, there 
was no need for play-acting between these two, they were 
by themselves, alone, without witnesses. They could avow 
to one another who they really were—she, Lady Beltham, 
the mysterious, the redoubtable mistress of the most abom¬ 
inable brigand in all the earth; he, that same brigand, 
Fantomas! 

And now the tragic lovers, after a hundred changes of 
fortune, intentional or accidental, that had hindered their 
meeting, found themselves face to face and under un¬ 
toward circumstances that forced them to exchange terrible, 
bitter speeches; for these two felt for one another at once 
an atrocious hate and an ineradicable love! Yes, in very 
deed, those two beings who were perpetually at daggers 
drawn, who had ever between them the most appalling 
episodes, the most fearful deeds and memories, were straitly 
bound one to the other by an unbreakable chain of love, 
whose links were riveted by the strongest of all implements, 
the crimes they had committed together. 

309 


3 10 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


It was in the drawing room of the mansion where dwelt 
the great lady who for all the world was the Grand Duchess 
Alexandra, but in reality was no other than Lady Beltham, 
that the painful interview took place. 

“What have you come here for? what do you want?” 
demanded the lady; but Fantomas, in a hollow voice he en¬ 
deavoured to make cold and peremptory, but which only the 
more betrayed his anguish, only replied by another question. 

“Sonia Danidoff,” he asked, “what has happened to 
Sonia Danidoff?” 

The brigand—he too was breathless with emotion—felt 
he must know the truth, his heart as a lover laid an obliga¬ 
tion on him, an obligation that wounded his self-love, 
anxiously to question the mistress he had forsaken as to the 
fate which she, in her jealous rage, had reserved for the 
other who had now become the favourite. Lady Beltham 
fought hard against her agitation and the pain that tore 
her breast; she articulated in a voice that whistled between 
the clenched teeth: 

“Sonia Danidoff! I wanted to kill her!” 

Instinctively Fantomas doubled his fists and cast a look 
of menace at the speaker; he would have hurled himself 
upon his defiant mistress, but the latter with an air of 
sardonic insolence stood before him, a superb figure of 
defiance, and never flinched. Yes, she defied her lover; 
Fantomas dared not go near her; yet curiosity, the craving 
to know what had become of Sonia, compelled him to hide 
his anger. 

“What have you done with her? Where is she? Speak!” 

Breathing all her hate in a dolorous cry, Lady Beltham 
wrung her beautiful hands, and groaning aloud, cried: 

“Go, Tom Bob, go and ask the officers of justice, go 
and learn from the police the fate I have reserved for your 
mistress, and the opinion she now has of you!” 

“Of me!” 

“Yes, sir, of you!” 

It was the brigand’s turn now to tremble with appre¬ 
hension, but such was the empire he possessed over himself, 
he was able to hide his agitation under a mask of smiling 
irony. 

“Lady Beltham,” he asked quietly, “so you have told 
the princess who I am, have you?” 


THE “EVER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN 311 

Very certainly, Lady Beltham had not gone so far as 
this, for despite her jealousy, she still cherished for the 
outlaw one of those monstrous passions that are like con¬ 
suming fires devouring women’s hearts, fires that are only 
extinguished by death! Nevertheless the jealous woman 
suffered her lover to believe that during a scene of angry 
altercation she had revealed to her rival the ignominy, the 
baseness, the crimes of the man whom the too trustful 
Sonia Danidoff had thought well to choose as the object of 
her heart’s desire. 

Fantomas bit his lips and his eyes fell, while Lady 
Beltham demanded in a questioning, defiant tone: 

“And why should I not have told the princess who you 
were?” 

Receiving no answer, she proceeded, smiling in her 
turn with a show of scornful dignity: 

“You are afraid, it seems, that knowing you in your 
true aspect, she might cease to feel for you the fatal in¬ 
fatuation that consumes her? Poor princess! poor pitiful 
passion! . . . what matter the faults, the vices of the 
man a woman loves, when she truly loves him? Fantomas,” 
the sobs were rising to her lips as she went on, “I ask you, 
have your villainies, have your crimes silenced in me the 
fond feelings I entertain for you? Have I, for all the 
hideous life of blood and terror I live because of you, have 
I ceased to love you?” 

Fantomas broke in: 

“You profess to love me, madam, to love me still, and 
yet you harass me with your threats. . . 

Lady Beltham interrupted in her turn; 

“Hate, Fantomas, is it not another form of love?” 

But the outlaw shook his head sadly. 

“Madam,” he declared, “I have lost all confidence; 
trusting to appearances, you have doubted my loyalty— 
I have proof of it, I know it; perhaps your distrustful 
attitude has gone for much in that I have shown towards 
you. ...” 

“What do you mean?” demanded Lady Beltham, “have 
you not, many times over, tried to kill me? Remember, 
Fantomas, the evening of the Pre-Catalan!” 

“You were there, madam, and I knew it; but recollect 
how, by an accident contrived by me, your car could not 


312 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


be started, a circumstance which saved you from the 
accident in the lake.” 

“Say rather,” protested Lady Beltham, shuddering, “that 
hitch, that breakdown, seemingly providential, enabled you 
to start back alone and unhindered with the Princess Sonia 
Danidoff.” 

Fantomas shrugged as he avowed with a cynical grin: 

“Little I cared for her love, it was her jewels I was after; 
you see I have nothing to hide from you!” 

“Scoundrel! ruffian!” screamed Lady Beltham, “so that 
is the alternative you offer me—to find my satisfaction in 
your thievish instincts to appease the horrid jealousy that 
stabs my heart. No, it must end, Fantomas, a life like 
this is become impossible, you must make your choice; 
choose betwixt us two, the princess and me. I do not mince 
my words: I bid you think of the consequences!” 

A flash of rage flamed in Fantomas’ eye, but to-day the 
pirate, the outlaw had clearly no chance left to show him¬ 
self, as usual, the master, the tyrant, the despot, who 
commands, and all men obey! He must condescend to 
parley, and in a choked voice he muttered: 

“Let us leave that for the moment, Lady Beltham, 
let us leave it; more serious events are brewing, are im¬ 
minent!” 

The great lady laughed sardonically. 

“Why, yes!” she sneered, “I don’t doubt that, if you 
are here, it is evidently. . . 

Fantomas cut her short. 

“Lady Beltham,” he assured her, “our plans have been 
frustrated, the scheme I had built up is crumbling to 
pieces; since yesterday Juve has been free and trium¬ 
phant. . . .” 

“Juve!” cried Lady Beltham thunderstruck, “is it pos¬ 
sible?” ^ 

Fantomas nodded in confirmation. 

“Juve!” reiterated his agonized mistress, “why, then it 
is the same existence of anguish and fear and never ending 
alarms will begin again, but worse than ever.” 

“Yes, Juve is at large,” insisted Fantomas. Then he 
added; “But as you were saying just now, Lady Beltham, 
I think it must all end—yes, and soon?” 

“What do you propose then?” 


THE “E\ ER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN 313 

Lady Beltham stopped suddenly. The bell of the 
house telephone that communicated with the porter’s 
lodge had just rung. Mechanically the great lady 
unhooked the receiver and listened. She was going 
to say no! to the question asked by the servant speak¬ 
ing from the other end of the wire, but Fantomas, with¬ 
out the smallest scruple, had appropriated the second 
receiver. 

“Ask him up, madam,” he gave his orders, “you cannot 
do otherwise, you must!” 

Lady Beltham obeyed and gave the required answer to 
the servant: 

“Ask Monsieur Ascott kindly to come upstairs; show 
him into my rooms.” 

In the midst of that Parisian oasis formed by the Parc 
des Princes, Lady Beltham had for some months been in 
occupation, under the name of the Grand Duchess Alex¬ 
andra, of a magnificent mansion standing in the middle of 
a vast park. The front of the house was approached by 
great gates of wrought iron, dividing the boulevard from 
a fine gravelled drive that swept round a lawn before the 
main entrance. Behind the building was a short cut leading 
from the offices and opening into a deserted by-street; this 
could only be reached after crossing an orchard planted with 
fruit trees, a spot of quite a countrified and unpretending 
aspect. The path connecting the house with the exit into 
the by-street was completely overshadowed by a double 
row of clipped yews, a relic of a garden of an earlier date, 
and throughout its length were ranged a number of bee¬ 
hives, giving this part of the garden a homely and utilitarian 
appearance, a charm that was at once restful and pictur¬ 
esque. 

While Lady Beltham was awaiting the visitor whom, at 
Fantomas’ unexpected order, she had decided to receive, 
and was endeavouring to restore to her features, distorted 
by the agitations she had gone through, some appearance 
of calm and composure, the monstrous malefactor, who had 
for months duped all Paris, passing himself off as the 
American detective, Tom Bob, slipped away softly into the 
adjoining room, under pretext of an intention to listen to 
the conversation the wealthy young Englishman wished to 


3 H THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

have with the lady he doubtless still took to be the Grand 
Duchess Alexandra. 

But anyone who could have seen Fantomas when alone 
in the room would surely have suspected the man of some 
more sinister motive. The brigand did not stay near the 
half open door, shielded though it was by a heavy curtain. 
With preoccupied air and a brow wrinkled in anxious 
thought, he stepped up to the window, and long and care¬ 
fully scrutinized what lay outside, if by any chance he 
might espy under the shadow of the trees some suspicious 
figure, some symptom of unknown danger. 

Ascott was shown in by a footman to the grand duchess’s 
apartments. The Englishman appeared, his features drawn 
with anxiety, his limbs twitching in uncontrollable excite¬ 
ment. With a hurried bow, he sank into a chair. 

“Excuse me, madam,” he stammered; then going straight 
to the point, he asked: 

“Tom Bob is here, is he not? Oh! I beseech you, tell 
me; I must see him.” 

So agitated was the young man he never noticed the look 
of terror his words brought to his hostess’s face. Hearing 
it said that Tom Bob was with her, she all but fainted, but 
recovering her self-possession: 

“Who told you that?” she demanded: “What do you want 
with him?” 

Then, without waiting for an answer, she questioned fur¬ 
ther: 

“But tell me, what has happened to you?” 

Ascott faltered in broken words that betrayed his con¬ 
fusion of mind: 

“A calamity, madam, an appalling calamity has befallen 
me and still crushes me.” 

He drew from his pocket a crumpled telegram, the tears 
welling to his eyes: 

“Read, madam,” he cried, and could not articulate an¬ 
other word. 

Lady Beltham glanced through the message; it an¬ 
nounced that, in a motor-car accident, Ascott’s father, the 
well-known peer and member of the Upper House, and his 
son, the young man’s eldest brother, had been killed! The 
tragedy had occurred in Scotland, in the Highlands, with¬ 
out a soul in sight! 


THE “EVER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN 315 

Ascott was sobbing bitterly. “When I heard of this 
terrible blow, madam,” he declared, “I had a presentiment, 
nay, all but a certainty, that the death of my loved ones 
was not due to mere accident. For, I must tell you this, 
I am the victim of a hideous plot, a prey to the most 
poignant anxieties. Madam,” he went on with an effort, 
“I was married quite lately, as you know. ... I married 
an ‘unfortunate,’ an abandoned creature. ... I am the 
victim of Fantomas’ villainies, who showed himself to me 
under the repulsive guise of the old usurer known by the 
name of Pere Moche. The monster of superhuman guile 
has me in his toils, which he draws tighter and tighter 
every day! The wife he made me marry has run away, 
she has robbed me, ruined me; but that is nothing, would 
be nothing at all, did I not guess that my father’s death 
and my brother’s must be yet another outcome of a plot 
contrived by Fantomas!” 

Lady Beltham was in a better position than anybody 
to realize that the rich Englishman must be right; as¬ 
suredly, the further she went, the more she would hear set 
down to her baleful lover’s account the most appalling 
revelations. 

Ascott, harking back to his first idea, again demanded an 
answer to his question, adjuring her to tell him where 
Tom Bob was. 

“I must see him,” he urged, “I must see him and speak 
to him. Tom Bob is the only person on earth, madam, 
who by his perspicacity, his adroitness, his admirable de¬ 
tective skill, can extricate me from my difficulties, and put 
me in a position to avenge my relatives’ deaths. Tom 
Bob, madam, is the man who must fight Fantomas!” 

Lady Beltham was like to die of distress and perplexity. 
No doubt, she had but to open a door to bring the young 
Englishman face to face with the bogus detective. But 
was it her duty to act so? Ought she not rather to enlighten 
Ascott, to tell him that Fantomas and Tom Bob were one 
and the same, just as Pere Moche and Fantomas again 
were one single and identical person! This course was 
what her conscience bade her take. But would duty tri¬ 
umph over love? 

Mechanically, moving like an automaton, without know¬ 
ing yet what decision she would adopt, for, if she felt pity 


316 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

for Ascott, she burned -with an ardent love for Fantomas, 
the great lady advanced slowly into the room where the 
brigand was. But next instant, horrified, she sprang back, 
though not without having first double locked the door of 
communication. 

What she had seen must have been something to cause 
both terror and despair, for Lady Beltham turned deadly 
pale, her splendid arms beat the air, she staggered and fell 
flat on the floor in a dead swoon. The look she had 
directed into the adjoining room and which had, in fact, 
determined her fainting fit, had passed unnoticed by the 
unfortunate young Englishman, too much preoccupied and 
agitated to observe the details of what was happening before 
his eyes. But now, seeing Lady Beltham’s condition, he 
hurried to her side and endeavoured to restore her to con¬ 
sciousness. His efforts proved vain, and shocked and 
alarmed, he rang the bell in the anteroom and called 
loudly for help. 

Servants appeared in answer to his summons; Lady 
Beltham was laid on a couch and restoratives applied. In 
ten minutes, by slow degrees, the unhappy woman began 
to regain her senses. 

But suddenly the tense silence was broken by the sound 
of shots. Lady Beltham shuddered and grew paler than 
ever. 

“Great heavens!!’ she asked, “what is happening?” 

Ascott could not tell her; the servants gathered about 
their mistress stood rooted to the spot in dumb bewilder¬ 
ment. 

Fantomas, when he left Lady Beltham waiting to receive 
Ascott, had his plan already cut and dried. The desperate 
villain realized that the game was up, beyond redemption. 
Unmasked so far as Moche was concerned, he was no less 
so in his incarnation as Tom Bob—but only in the minds 
of Juve, of Fandor, and of Lady Beltham. 

For one brief instant the criminal had debated with 
himself what course was best to adopt. The moment was 
surely near at hand when he must either take to flight and 
disappear, or play his last desperate card, defy the world 
and maintain that he was indeed Tom Bob and no one else. 
But would that suffice? 


THE “EVER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN 317 

Still, Fantomas would have risked everything on this 
last chance, had he not had an opponent as cunning as 
himself, and now free to act. He knew, in fact, that from 
one minute to the next he might find himself face to face 
with Juve—not Juve, the ordinary adversary he had been 
before, but Juve proved innocent of the crimes he was 
accused of, Juve his character rehabilitated in all men’s 
eyes, Juve with power and authority fortified by the price¬ 
less, invaluable collaboration of the whole police force of 
France. After coldly weighing his chances of victory 
against those of defeat, Fantomas decided for flight. 

Still the hardy scoundrel did not go at once. Examining 
the room where he was, he noted a safe embedded in the 
wall. An evil smile crossed his pallid lips; cynically he 
muttered: 

“So the Grand Duchess Alexandra has constituted her¬ 
self treasurer of the fund for the good souls who were for 
subscribing Fantomas’ million! Fantomas,” he went on 
with a vile grin, “would be a simpleton indeed not to pay 
to himself what is meant for him.” 

Evidently the ruffian knew the secret of the strongbox. 
Was it not he, in fact, who had advised Lady Beltham to 
purchase it? Fantomas opened the safe, drew out its 
contents in handfuls, stuffed his pockets full of gold and 
notes. 

For a moment he was disturbed in this twice infamous 
robbery by the creak of an opening door; he looked round, 
startled and confused, but he could see nothing, the door 
had been reclosed. And Fantomas, never knowing that his 
last act of brigandage had so profoundly shocked his mis¬ 
tress that she had fallen fainting to the floor in the next 
room, went on with his thievery. 

With infinite precautions, five minutes afterward, the 
thief was creeping surreptitiously down the back stairs; 
gaining the deserted offices, he found an open window, and 
leapt into the garden behind the house. He had his good 
reasons for not leaving by the front gates. Cowardly, like 
a traitor, like a wild beast pursued by the hunters, like 
a criminal hiding after a dastardly deed, he glided into the 
deep shade of the pleached alley, muffling his footsteps, 
revolver in hand, ready to resist the first attack, confident 
of escaping the most ingeniously laid trap. 


318 THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 

Then he halted for a second. The hot sun of this sum¬ 
mer afternoon pierced the heavy overhanging foliage and 
threw on the ground a hundred black, dancing shadows 
that patterned the mossy carpet and dazzled the eyes. 
But the robber’s keen ear had caught a suspicious sound 
and he stopped to listen. Was someone spying on him? 
Instinctively he told himself: 

“Juve, since yesterday a free man, and by a miracle 
escaped from the hands of my confederates, is perhaps at 
my heels?” 

Then came a cry of rage! Suddenly, emerging from the 
bushes, a man had sprung at his throat. The man was 
Juve! 

Fantomas fired, without a tremble of the outstretched 
arm, at point blank range. But the ball never reached 
its aim; piercing the thick roof of greenery above, it lost 
itself in the sky. For at the same instant he had caught 
sight of Juve and taken aim at his heart, Fantomas was 
attacked in the rear. A formidable blow across the loins 
upset his balance and the villain measured his length on 
the ground. Boiling with rage, he pressed the trigger and 
shot off at random the four remaining charges—quite with¬ 
out effect. The bullets struck no one; ploughing up the 
soil, they raised a thick cloud of dust, and that was all. 

Juve had leapt upon his assailant instantly; kneeling 
on the man’s chest, he held him down, both hands gripping 
his throat. Looking up, Fantomas could see his face, and 
Fandor’s beside it. He was done for! his two implacable 
enemies had him in their power. 

Hours ago officer and journalist had planned his arrest. 
Instead of hurrying off to find M. Havard, as the latter 
hoped, Juve and Fandor had sworn to themselves to set 
off at once, hot foot, on the track of the atrocious villain. 
They had been well advised in going straight to Lady 
Beltham’s, for no sooner did they reach the neighbourhood 
of the house in the Parc des Princes than they saw Fanto¬ 
mas slip in. Thereupon, making sure the outlaw would 
inevitably try to escape by way of the hidden pathway 
behind the building, they ensconced themselves in the 
deepest shadow of the trees and waited. 

Their foresight was rewarded; they had the brigand 
hard and fast. In one second, with amazing dexterity, 


THE “EVER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN 319 

Juve had his prisoner handcuffed. With his hands thus 
linked together in front of him, Fantomas was harmless, 
helpless, impotent. With a vigorous push Juve forced him 
to his knees, then to his feet. Gripping their captive by 
the arms, Juve on one side, Fandor on the other, the two, 
without a word—they might surely have found too much to 
say, and thought it best to hold their tongue—dragged off 
their redoubtable prisoner towards the door at the far end 
of the park. 

Fantomas was deep in thought: 

“Once they get me as far as there, once they drag me 
over the threshold of that door, once I leave this garden, 
it is all up, I am done for!” 

With amazing coolness the extraordinary man analysed 
the situation, and in two seconds drew his conclusion. He 
had a hundred yards still to go along the tree-shaded path¬ 
way; before that hundred yards was traversed, he must 
find a means of escape—or else. . . 

Any display of physical force was impossible! any exer¬ 
tion of strength would have been in vain; Juve and Fandor 
held him fast, each with a grip of steel, their strength 
doubled by the furious anger that tightened their muscles 
and the triumph that swelled their hearts to have captured 
the scoundrel. Nor could Fantomas dream of eluding their 
vigilance or asking any favour of his captors; the pitiless 
ruffian could hope for no pity! 

The last fifty yards only remained, and Fantomas had 
devised nothing yet. 

But suddenly a gleam of ferocity flashed in his eye. 
With a sudden spring, he threw himself to one side of 
the pathway, shouldering back Fandor who was on his left, 
dragging Juve on his right after him. Next moment, with 
a lightning dart neither ofiker nor journalist could antici¬ 
pate, the brigand had fallen on two hives and kicked them 
over. 

True, Juve and Fandor, instantly hauled him back to 
the middle of the path, but yells of agony now burst from 
their lips. The bees, disturbed in their peaceful labours, 
exasperated at the earthquake that had befallen them, rose 
in angry swarms and swooped down on the three men! 
Burning for revenge, the insects in their hurrying thousands 
fell upon their enemies! 


THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS 


3 20 

With the hand left free—for they would not loose hold 
of Fantomas—Juve and Fandor strove instinctively to parry 
the attack, to sweep away the clustering swarms. But this 
made things worse; the number of the aggressors was 
only multiplied. Now about their faces whirled a buzzing, 
eddying cloud of infuriated creatures! 

Fantomas, on the contrary, who had had a second or 
two’s time to think what course was best to adopt after 
upsetting the hives, forced himself to stand absolutely still, 
refraining from making the slightest movement, barely stir¬ 
ring lips and eyelids. And the bees, in their blindness, 
never attacking the villain who was their real enemy, 
directed all their efforts to the two who, from the weird 
gesticulations they indulged in, seemed the most redoubt¬ 
able foes. 

Stung in a thousand places, Juve and Fandor shrieked in 
agony and, overmastered by the pain, let go their prisoner. 

The latter, following the same tactics, dropped to the 
ground, burying his face in the grass by the side of the 
pathway. There Fantomas lay as still as death, while Juve 
and Fandor fell victims to the angry bees, all the more 
because they waved their arms wildly about and tried to 
defend themselves. 

Beaten at last, the two martyrs abandoned all efforts to 
resist and rolled on the ground in transports of insufferable 
pain! 

Two hours after, Juve and Fandor were discovered lying 
under the trees in the garden of the grand duchess’s house; 
they were unconscious, half dead, their faces so disfigured 
by the bees’ merciless stings as to be unrecognizable. 

As for Tom Bob-Fantomas, he had disappeared. Once 
again that monster of iniquity was at large. . . . 

Would he add yet more atrocities to the long list of his 
crimes? ? ? 


THE END 


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